The readings and responses listed here should take you approximately 65 minutes total.
To start this assignment:
- Click the button in the upper right-hand corner that says Fork. This is now your copy of this document.
- Click the Edit button when you're ready to start adding your answers.
- To save your work, click the green button in the bottom right-hand corner. You can always come back and re-edit your gist.
Learning Fluency by Turing alum Sara Simon (40 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
- I really liked the writer's system of learning one part of a language at a time. Her example of learning Chinese by pouring over one word at a time, and then 5 words at a time, etc; is something I plan to implement in my work at Turing. I can take one new techincal term or practice and really learn it, then continue to add a few more each day.
- The "chunking" concept is also very interesting to me, as I like the idea of learning large pieces of information at a time, where they all eventually get added to the framework of understanding I am trying to assemble in my head. Although similar to learning one word or term at a time, I took this "chunking" theory as more of a way to grasp larger bits of the overall concepts. I can definitely see how applying this theory (which was initially researched in Chess) could be helpful to someone who is learning programming.
- Finally, I loved the author's points on creativity and innovation. Specifically, I really like how she says that creativity can only come from a place of intense understanding. I defintely plan to implement this new mindset that in order to be an innovater and to make original and exciting things, I must first be dedicated enough to get a strong understanding of the source material. This article was certainly inspiring and I am excited to continue to think about the concepts.
Use Google to go find at least one online resource detailing keyboard shortcuts and/or features that are built into Slack.
- What resource(s) did you find? Paste them below:
- What are three Slack shortcuts and/or features that will contribute to your productivity?
- I learned that the forward slash is very powerful in slack, and allows you to call on many different commands. For example, "/away + return" will set your status to away, and "/active" to reverse it.
- Another really cool function is the /remind me command. I can tell Slack to remind me to do something in an amount of time, or even tell Slack to remind someone else. For example, if I send Jack (@jack) a message about our meeting in an hour, I can type "/remind tell @jack we have a meeting in one hour", and Slack will remind him about our meeting in an hour when the time comes. This a very simple but helpful tool.
- One keyboard shortcut I found is (command + k), which allows you to quickly jump between channels without having to move your mouse and click on the channel name. I'm sure this will become very handy as I use Slack more and more.
What's the use of the staging area in git? on Stackoverflow (15 min)
The idea of the staging area is frequently one of the trickiest concepts to wrap your head around when you're first learning git. Read the question and answers (or do your own Googling on the git staging area). Then, create your own metaphor comparing the staging area to something in real life.
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Type your metaphor below:
One metaphor I came up with after researching the function of the Git staging area would be: Imagine you are at the store buying clothes. You have a pile of items on the bench you are going to try on. Every time you try something on and decide you might want to buy it, you hang it on the hook in the changing room. When you look through the clothes on that hook and are posititive you want to buy something, you put that item in the cart for checkout. This hook is the staging area, and adding an item to the shopping cart is like completeing a commit. Each article of clothing is a new change, where you take the ones you think you want to buy and hang them on the hook while you try on some more stuff.
If you have any questions, comments, or confusions that you would an instructor to address, list them below:
- Not right now, thanks!