{the jump}

Pre-Bootcamp

Information

Session 1

Overview of contents

  1. Quick Tutor intro
  2. The Teaching Assistants
  3. Session Admin
  4. How to do well
  5. Things that will hold you back
  6. The Deal
  7. The End Goal
  8. How we achieve it
  9. What happens next

Quick Instructor Intro

Name: Russell Wilkes

 

Experience: Developer for 20+ years and has previously taught lots of students to become developers, both at another school and with The Jump

 

Interesting facts about Russell: He's taller than he looks on screen and you should definitely ask him about his novel approach to keeping his personal data safe

The Teaching Assistants

  • The Teaching Assistants are here to help you alongside your instructor
  • Our current school assistants are:
    • Pippin Burkett aka Pip (they/them)
    • Mido  (he/him)
  • You will not need them yet
  • Typically we introduce you to the TA in the CSS part of the bootcamp, and before then your tutor will be your point of contact for any issues

Session Admin

Sessions

  • Sessions for this cohort run on Tuesday & Thursday evenings from 18:30 - 21:30 UK time
     
  • Sessions are recorded and shared with you so you can revisit what was covered
    • Don't share the recordings or the learning materials outside the cohort
       
  • Please have your cameras on during the sessions so that we can see your lovely faces - it really helps us to teach you if we can see you

Homework

  • Homework is set throughout the bootcamp and is really important - you'll get much more value from the bootcamp if you put the effort in on the homework
     
  • As your homework / project work reaches an appropriate standard we will push it to your github / Codepen accounts to form part of your portfolio
     
  • Submitting homework:
    • Methods vary
    • BE A NEAT FREAK!!
    • Submit by midnight Monday
      • Feedback will be given later that week

Homework Folder/Document Naming

Make life easy and predictable for yourself:

  • Keep file/folder names short
  • Give things semantic names (relevant & meaningful)
  • Keep everything in lower case
  • Don't use spaces, instead use _ (or - if it's part of a URL)
  • Avoid using names that are very similar to others
  • Don't begin with numbers
    • ​If numbers are involved, then use 001 rather than 1 to avoid 1, 10, 11, 12 ..., 19, 2, 20, 21, 22 ... etc

How to do well on this bootcamp

  1. Get your hands dirty
  2. Maintain consistency, focus and morale
  3. Pay attention to detail
  4. Ask for help when you need it

1. Get your hands dirty!!

  • Get hands on with the code. This is what turns it from information which sits on a page to being something you know how to wield to deliver a result. You can watch videos and study the physics of how to ride a bike, but until you get on one, you're just observing. It's the same with learning to code. Get stuck in
     
  • When you're learning, it's better to get the wrong answer and learn why it's wrong than it is to get the right answer but not understand why it's right
     
  • Try things, make lots of mistakes, find errors & fix them
     
  • Practicing and playing with code gives you flight time that will make you a good dev
  • This is a long journey and there will be high points and times when you struggle - this is a marathon not a sprint, so keep focused and keep working
  • Get to know your classmates and support each other
    • Set up a class WhatsApp group
  • Talk to us as much as you like
  • Worry less! (especially at the beginning) 🙂
    • "Today's mountain is tomorrow's mole hill!"
  • Play more! (with the tech) and be excitable
  • Be kind to yourself - this stuff isn't easy but if you put the effort in, you will get there

2. Maintain consistency, focus and morale

3. Pay attention to detail

  • During the bootcamp we go through the content in meticulous detail. If you're already familiar with some of it then it's tempting to think "I already know this", BUT this attention to detail can mean the difference between coding and coding well/at a commercial standard
     
  • Knowing things 'in depth' and having that knowledge become reflexive will help you in interviews and help you progress faster as a developer

Rules of Struggling:

  1. Struggle for 15 mins max
  2. Talk to your rubber duck (an inanimate object of your choosing, which you can explain your coding problems to)
  3. Get up, walk away/do something else
  4. Try for another 15 mins
    • maybe have a quick google to get some inspiration
  5. Stop and Contact your instructor (and later the TA)
    • Don't waste hours struggling

4. Ask for help

Things that will hold you back

  • Having substandard equipment - e.g. broken trackpad or a really slow computer
  • Not practicing enough or not completing homework
  • Being too critical of yourself
  • Being a perfectionist - strive to be the best you can be, and throw the idea of perfection in the sea
  • Being afraid of making mistakes
  • Not wanting to ask questions for fear of looking silly
  • Avoiding things you don't understand
  • Getting stressed and not talking to us about it

Errors and Mistakes

  • In our age of image, the focus is on perception and looking competent - you're going to need to throw that idea in the sea straight away. 
    • Making mistakes is absolutely expected and critical to your learning - the more you make and explore, the faster you'll learn
    • This is a safe place to make mistakes  
    • HOUSE RULE: NEVER ridicule another student
       
  • How our co-founder, James, became a really good developer:
    • He made mistakes. A lot. All the time. And still does 
    • But he practiced. A lot. Every day 
    • Peers who didn't practice or embrace mistakes didn't progress

"Comparison is the thief of joy." - Theodore Roosevelt

  • Ego - The ONLY person you should compete against is you - are you making the grade? / Are you developing confidently?'
     
  • Don't compare yourself to others around you
    • Everyone learns at a different speed and in different ways - and the only thing that matters is that you are learning
    • EVERYONE struggles at some point

Comparison with other students

The Deal between you and your instructor

  1. You and your instructor are going to work together to make you a developer
  2. Your instructor cannot do that alone
  3. You must struggle, fight and work hard to achieve this
  4. Your instructor will show you the good paths
  5. You must follow what your instructor says and do what they ask of you
  6. You must practice and own your own learning
  7. You must communicate with your instructor
  8. Your instructor will give their all to make you a developer
  9. You will achieve it, if you work hard and respect this deal

The End Goal

  • To equip you with the skills and knowledge that you need to be able to develop and deploy software to a professional standard, using the technology that the industry values and is using right now
     
  • If you're looking for a career change, then Robert will help you with that towards the end of the bootcamp

How we achieve it

  • To achieve that end goal, the bootcamp will cover the languages, libraries, frameworks, tools and systems that you will need to know to develop software across the front-end and back-end of the client-server model
     
  •  This timetable shows you how we will cover that material 
    • It is approximate and subject to change at the instructor's discretion
      ​
  • The bootcamp has a curve to it - what that means is it will start slowly as we embed the basics, and then it will speed up as we add complexity
  • Front-End (Client/Browser): Programming for what happens to the document when it is with the user and the user interacts with it. May include:
    • Document manipulation (show/hide)
    • User Events: Responding to clicks, hovers, etc.
    • Programmer Events: Calling server for more information
    • Manage local resources (e.g. localStorage, etc.)
    • Local programming (Maths operations, etc.)
  • Back-End (Server): Programming for the machine that gives you the document. May include:
    • Sending you back a document
    • Getting, processing & returning data from a database
    • Calling someone else's servers to get information
    • Keeping 'state' for your application (think: items in catalog)
    • Access Control
      • Things held here (outside served folders) are private

We'll start on the front-end

  • Because [initially] it's less technical
  • Our 3 technologies are:
    1. HTML
    2. CSS
    3. JavaScript (JS)
  • The first 4 sessions are HTML
    • key for good SEO and accessibility/usability
  • Then 12 session of CSS
    • For appearance
  • Then the rest is JavaScript
    • Which controls all the programming/'behaviour'
    • (except for 1week of git/shell and 2.5 weeks of devops)

How these three languages works together

Progressive Enhancement -->

Graceful Degradation -->

Some truths about the web paradigm

  • It's a brilliant sh*t-show
    • Browser wars
    • Mistakes can never be undone due to backwards compatibility, so there's lots of 'trash'/legacy lying around
  • It is uniquely powerful in its generics - i.e. the same basic technologies can solve infinite amounts of problems
  • It is complex:
    • There are a lot of moving parts
    • There is regularly more than one answer to the same problem
    • Some answers are better than others for long-term maintenance!

Brief History

 

N.B. All this means that the web is peculiar:

  • Cross-browser differences
  • Device capabilities

Resources

  • AT ANY POINT DURING THE BOOTCAMP YOU ARE COMPLETELY AT LIBERTY TO GOOGLE THE ANSWER.
  • THIS IS SOMETHING ALL PROFESSIONAL DEVS DO ALL DAY LONG! THERE IS NO SHAME IN IT WHATSOEVER!
  • IT IS KEY TO HOW YOU LEARN.
  • StackOverflow (for answers) (Be aware, it can be wrong and unkind!)
  • MDN (For guides and references)
  • Github 
  • Codepen

Caveats:

  • Code ages fast! Be wary of code >~3 years old.
  • DON'T TRY TO READ THE ENTIRE INTERNET. Stick with what we give you and ask your instructor/TA questions if you don't understand. We're here to help

What happens next:

In your first session, we'll welcome you all to the cohort, your instructor will introduce themselves and invite you to introduce yourself to your fellow students - usually your name, what you do, what you're looking to get out of the bootcamp, what your coding experience is and whether you're on mac, windows or linux machine. Then, once the setup admin is out of the way, it's time to start learning!  

See you all next week!! 🥳