prufrock123 / Notes-Jan-2015

This is the notes repo for The Iron Yard's Houston Front End Engineering course starting January 2015

TIY Houston Front End Engineering Notes and Resources

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Instructor Contact Info

Matthew Keas - [e-mail] - twitter: @matthiasak - github: matthiasak

Campus Director Contact Info

Brian Dorton - [e-mail]

Schedule

• Class is from January 5, 2015 to March 27, 2015.
• Lecture is from 9.30 AM to 12:30 or 1 PM Monday-Thursday, with breaks during that time. Depending on the topic, we may end earlier or later. :-)
• Lab time is from 1 PM to 5 PM Monday-Thursday and 9 AM to 5 PM on Friday!
• Group review sessions will be held Tuesday and Friday afternoons, from 2pm-3pm
• #IronPints Friday at 3.30pm at our local bars.

Office hours and one-on-one instruction

A teacher or TA will be available Monday-Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM at minimum. During lab time, you can schedule one-on-one time with either of us. After hours, we may be available in the classroom or in Slack, which we use for group communication.

Holidays

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - Monday, Jan 19th.

Materials

All students must bring their own MacBook laptop to class. I recommend the 13" MacBook Air or Pro. The only upgrade (if any) you should purchase is 8GB of RAM. I have had one for several years, I use it almost too often, and it has never failed on me. :-)

Your MacBook must be running OS X Yosemite, which is a free upgrade from the App Store. Download and install it if you haven't yet.

Accounts to sign up for:

If you don't have an account with any of these, sign up for them now:

1. http://github.com
2. http://twitter.com
3. http://medium.com

There is no commercial software required for the class. We will install a number of tools to be used, such as a code editor and chat program.

A custom install script will be provided and run the first day of class.

Prework

See The Prework document.

Final Projects

See The Final Project document.

After class ends

Learn server-side programming, too. Choose one:

1. Learn server-side JS (Node.js); the framework Express is built on JS

• Learn PHP; the framework Symfony is built on PHP; Wordpress is also built on PHP
• Learn Python; the framework Django is built on Python
• Learn Ruby; the framework Rails is built on Ruby
• Learn C# (pronounced "C-sharp"); the framework ASP.NET MVC 4.5 is built on C#

... you will be looking for those next steps. Check out the following ideas:

• Practice interview questions:
  • https://github.com/PROSPricing/js-assessment/tree/master/app
  • https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions/blob/master/README.md
• Blog about topics relative to being a JS developer
• Setup an RSS feed reader (like http://feedly.com) to automatically collect articles from the following:
  • HackerNewsList,
  • JavaScriptWeekly,
  • WebDesignWeekly,
  • WDRL,
  • Sidebar.io,
  • CSS Weekly,
  • CSS Tricks,
  • HTML5 Weekly,
  • Daily JS,
  • Smashing Magazine,
  • A List Apart
• Freelance and do side projects. Check out the job resources list for that.
• Read up on freelancing in this walkthrough.
• Apply for freelance work with a distributed team - RyeDev (http://www.ryedev.com/referral/), a group of TIY alum.
• Participate in hackathons, such as http://hacktoberfe.st
• Speak at meetups and conferences:
  • http://houstonjs.com
  • http://spacecityjs.com
  • http://lanyrd.com/calls/

Policies

Sounds boring, but these are important:

• Absences and timeliness - You can miss up to 4 lectures; after that, your enrollment in career support is forfeit. I don't recommend missing any, as we will be moving very fast! This is to help with expectations: I show up, you show up, we all show up --- and kick ass! :-) Also, please show up on time. We count 2 lates as an absence. All I ask for is general respect of the crew and class so that we can learn without constant hiccups and interruptions!

• Late or incomplete homework - Your homework is due by 9 AM on the assigned day. After that, it is late. If you miss homework assignments, come talk to me, because I know problems and emergencies can happen. However, you will be required to make up for late/incomplete assignments, so don't fall behind! I would rather see a solid attempt on time than a complete assignment late. Solid attempts are not considered late!

• Honor - You are expected to do your own work. If you don't, why are you here? You should use all resources available to you, including open-source code, but copy and pasting open-source code is prohibited: you should use it only for inspiration or as a library in a bigger project. Copying homework is taken very seriously and can result in forfeiting career support.

• Conduct - I run a class based on human decency and respect - I want everyone to be welcome. Generally spoken, if something can be taken the wrong way, be careful how you say it! Got an issue with someone? If you ever have any issues, just reach out to me or any of The Iron Yard employees. I promise we will represent everyone fairly and equally, and we generally care for the well-being of our students.