Week 1

[sofer]

Week 1 comments go here

[rug1]

Me and @naazy
Day 1 - DOM manipulation and file structure walkthrough/workshop. Other useful things like dev tools in chrome.
Day 2 - Git and Github walkthrough/workshop
Project - No Jekyll, just create own html and css file structure. Team portfolio site rather than a blog.

[Conorc1000]

Me and Jack the Lad.

• More rigorous intro to paired programming, we could make a power point presentation, driving-steering, steerer describes in english what should be done, the driver writes the code. Place emphasis on avoiding steering while driving{especially silent steering} if the driver has an idea then swap, have regular change overs 30mins-1hr.
• One day dedicated to using git hub, lots of white board walk throughs and examples on the projector.

[sohilpandya]

@des-des @sohilpandya

• Felt Happy with the week in general. Use of Github and Jeckyll to create blog is a good start.
• Guidance on how to use jeckyll.

[katpas]

@thegsi

• Find an alternative to Jekyll. Maybe have some server files in a repo that FAC have written, then just the front-end needs working on for the project.
• Need a day spent on getting Git as a workshop.
• CSS grid workshop @thegsi liked. Kat didn't.
• Way too many learning outcomes for that week in the patterns folder.
• Better organisation/naming in the repo's.
• Talk on writing better code would be good e.g. how to structure a CSS/Javascript file, how to name things well.

[Joshua-Ronan-Phillips]

Justen and Josh

• Jigsaw from day 1 better than pairs (four topics to cover on each learning day, try and get them as equal as possible).
• Prioritise or highlight the most important learning outcomes to aid consolidation.
• No Jekyll
• DOM manipulation walkthrough/workshop.
• Git and Github walkthrough/workshop.
• File Structure, explanation of why its useful as it gets bigger.

[tormod17]

me and @mk4111 agreed that we felt using Jekyll was tough but was great in setting the bar high and forcing everyone to make an asserted effort in week one. However, we both think that maybe Jekyll wasn't useful as a tool to use in the future. Maybe creating a good readme for Jekyll specifically would've been beneficial. We are open to other suggestions in place of Jekyll, perhaps creating a website with four pages (one for each team member) coding from scratch, forcing us to use our FE skills with Git.

[hdrdavies]

@katkelemen & @hdrdavies

• Neither of us liked Jekyll but we both thought it was a good learning tool, and good way to learn about file structure as well as static page hosting
• It would work better if there was a more comprehensive readme to follow (however, this stops people from learning to read documentation). Perhaps there could be a little guide on merging jekyll and github
• HTML and CSS track on codecademy could be weekend prep for the week
• Learning outcomes weren’t great for this week but I think we may have solved it in the following weeks. Possible 4 topics for jigsaw groups in week 1:
  • Git & Github best practices
  • CSS responsive design
  • Project Management & Organisation
• Development Basics
• More emphasis on properly constructing readmes every week e.g. PROBLEMS WE HAD AN WHAT WE LEARNED section - possibly the most important thing to glean for each group. The readmes from the early weeks were really poor
• Perhaps more quiet time in week 1 and 2 to read through all the new info because it comes pretty thick and fast

[mantagen]

@RachBLondon @mantagen

• Very early whiteboard walkthough on git (day 2 of git)
• Week 1 git practise only with static site (html css js)
• No jekyll (not relevant)
• Good topics for study groups
• If grid system (find good resource for them)
• Emphasis on mobile first (Viewport meta tag, this could be a criteria for week 1 project)

[Joshua-Ronan-Phillips]

Josh, Sohil, Eoin, Justen

• prioritisation of learning outcomes, to solve what to focus on in spare time (if you want)
• Jigsaw days, yes or no?

[Conorc1000]

Naaz Ruth Conor Jack

• Day one use paired programming to explore DOM manipulation.
• Find an alternative to Jekyll or give it it’s own week.
• Day two Github

[hdrdavies]

@katkelemen @hdrdavies @thegsi @katpas

@katkelemen @hdrdavies agreed especially with:

• Git & Github workshop day 1 to ensure people understand the flow for their week 1 projects

@thegsi @katpas agreed especially with:

• Readmes being terrible and more emphasis on what point of readme is

New comments from discussion:

• sentiment that there’s too much going on in week 1, Jekyll, Git, Github, HTML, CSS all at the same time was difficult. Perhaps construct a template to push HTML and CSS to so that people can practice Git and Github as a priority, and not have to focus on learning a templating engine
• @katpas strictly opposed to Jekyll
• @thegsi & @hdrdavies think Jekyll is ok and is valuable for learning a new tool
• Jigsaw days could be done slightly differently - perhaps more time dedicated to going through the tutorials that people have constructed

[tormod17]

Matt. Marie, Tormod and Rachel. Agree the bar should be set high particularly in week one and liked the fact that Jekyll did that. We don't believe that Jekyll however, is the best thing for us to learn going forward as we may never use it again. Perhaps developing a website from scratch with a page for each team member and perfecting the FE skills.

[hdrdavies]

@katkelemen, @thegsi, @katpas, @hdrdavies, @mantagen, @RachBLondon, @tormod17, @mk4111

• Week 1 is a good opportunity to establish HTML & CSS best practices and a chance to make a project look really good. Accessibility would a good focus for the week in HTML and CSS
• Learning new tools and frameworks is awesome but perhaps not in week 1. Already enough of a baptism of fire 🔥
• Best practices on how to structure CSS files 👍
• viewport meta tags would be a good addition

[Joshua-Ronan-Phillips]

Everyone Else

• Prioritisation of learning outcomes: all agreed it would be beneficial
• Jigsaw: to do or not to do that is the question
• Jekyll: get rid of it
• Learning Outcomes: HTML & CSS & DOM Manipulation (Javascript) (instead of pre-course) & Git
  • goals: ?

[hdrdavies]

FAC6-wide discussion

• People were crap 💩 at Git so more focus should be laid on this rather than learning a templating engine
• Week 1 could be used better for establishing HTML & CSS best practices as well as Accessibility standards (w3schools?)
• Improvements should be made to the week 1 learning outcomes - perhaps a prioritisation of these so people know the most important features if they come back to it
• Give the topic for learning outcomes the night before for slow readers and people who like to read in peace
• Less emphasis on writing the readme and more emphasis on finding the best resources - and also reviewing them (e.g. I found this one easy, I found this one surprising, this one has a good tutorial) would be super helpful
• Should reading days be done as a group? Perhaps a portion of time should be dedicated to going away and reading by yourself. Workshop covers team-based learning activities already
• Possibly dedicate a portion of time before the project to read through all the learning outcomes stuff (perhaps instead of the Wednesday morning challenge?)
• Problem with huge number of learning outcomes is that you don’t learn everything - maybe we have 4 key learning outcomes and you don’t necessarily need to know everything about them and understand what they are when you come across them). Core concepts seem to be the most important things to get a grounding in to work upon (so shave the learning outcomes if possible)

Possible week 1 structure

• HTML, CSS, DOM Manipulation and Git could be the week 1 project, but make sure we have a git workshop all day week 1 day 1 ✨
• DOM Manipulation with JS would be the main focus of the week's project
• Natalia’s repo in some cases assumed a little too much so we could simplify even further
• 2 strings of thought about the week 1 project - one more on CSS, one more on DOM manipulation
• Week 1 ideas - DOM Manipulation workshop Monday, Git workshop Tuesday, Project Wednesday onwards
• Weekend before week 1 - do HTML and CSS course again on codecademy

Discussion of TDD

• TDD tutorial was really hard, therefore FE testing was not used by a lot of people. Morning challenge ES6 testing of JS functions was really really good. Something like this for the first tutorial could work
• If we want to be serious about TDD, every week should be introduced with how you’re gonna test it
• Decision needs to be made whether project focuses should be TDD, or whether more interesting projects are the aim. There’s not enough room for both
• Is FE testing as useful as BE testing?
• TDD is really important for when we move onto MVPs and Commercial projects
• External code review session (8th Light) could be the chance to do professional ping-pong TDD
• Morning challenges could be a chance to use test - write the code to pass the tests. Instead of stopwatch, perhaps have a JS testing session e.g. Nikhi’s ES6 morning challenge On the “build a router week” you can build tests to test the endpoints as you build them
• Should TDD be left for back-end? Should testing be a whole week in week 2? Should we cut another week?