cmkoller

How to Plan and Start Your Project

1. Make a "dream list" and a "do it now" list

When planning your app, you're going to have a lot of big crazy awesome ideas - which is super fun. Store those ideas somewhere. Every time you think of a new feature, write it down on that "dream features" list.

For actually starting, you need to pick a very small, core subset of those features and NOT let yourself develop beyond that until those starting features are all meeting your expectations.

Once you have your "dream list" fleshed out with all the ideas that have been floating around in your head, ask yourself what the core functionality of your app is. If you chip away as many pieces of your app as possible, what are you left with? That's what you should start with.

cmkoller

Ruby Install Walk-Through

# Install chruby
brew install chruby

# Enable Auto-Switching current Ruby
echo "source /usr/local/share/chruby/chruby.sh" >> ~/.zshrc
echo "source /usr/local/share/chruby/auto.sh" >> ~/.zshrc

cmkoller

<% flash.keys.each do |type| %>
  <div data-alert class="flash <%= type %> alert-box radius">
    <%= flash[type] %>
    <a href="#" class="close">&times;</a>
  </div>
<% end %>

cmkoller

#Atom Shortcuts

##Opening Atom the Right Way

1. Open iTerm
2. cd into the right directory
3. Type atom . to open the directory in Atom.

(DON'T just go opening a directory with every project you've ever done! It will seriously make your life so much more difficult!)

cmkoller

All About Sass

Sass == "Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets"

Sass is a CSS extension language. It builds on top of CSS, fixes some of its problems, and generally makes it way better.

###What's wrong with CSS?

It's so, so not DRY:

• You often need to repeat big lines of selectors as you target more and more deeply nested items

cmkoller

#Factory Girl

FactoryGirl is a gem that helps you with testing. It basically allows you to create "factories" that crank out objects to your database for you to test. Once FactoryGirl is set up, instead of needing to type this:

let(:user) { User.create(username: "cmkoller", email: "email@email.com", provider: "github", uid: "alksdjalks", avatar_url: "http://1.com"}

I can type something like this:

cmkoller

#Rails Set-Up Cheat Sheet

For a quick Rails set-up, check out the make_it_so gem! It will generate a Rails project with all this built in and more. (User authentication included!) However, if you're like me and prefer to step through the process on your own first, this is the cheat sheet to remember how to set things up!

Protip: Any time you would type rails generate in your command line, you can type rails g instead!

###Creating the app

In command line:

cmkoller

Git Cheat Sheet

The first two lists here are a super condensced version to give you easy access to the commands you'll be using all the time. For a fuller walkthrough of how to set up your project and keep it updated, read on below!

First Time Around:

• cd <project_directory>
• git init
• git add -A
• git commit -m "<your comment>"
• git remote add origin

cmkoller

Example Code

CSS Frameworks

The aim of frameworks in general is to provide a common structure so that developers don’t have to redo it from scratch.

CSS frameworks:

• allow for quicker and easier styling
• provide a cohesive, semi-polished look right off the bat
• are super easy to install!