Week #1 || Principles and Practices + Project Management
1. HTML web development.
The first thing we started with this week was learning how to make a website using HTML and CSS. I have some experience making websites using Wordpress, and this helped me a lot understanding the stand-alone use of HTML and CSS. In Wordpress I have been using both languages a lot in customizing templates, but never completely understood the underlying structures and rules. Our local teacher Ferninand Meier gave us an introduction to making websites in HTML using the open-sourche program Brackets by Adobe. He advised us to use a template from the website Open Source Web Design, and so I did. My Fab Academy website is made from the CMS Technologies template, and I intend to use it in order to learn from its structure. In the process of doing so I will make my own template based on the customizations I made to the template.
2. Project Management.
In the lecture on 28.01, Neil pointed out the importance of project management. Without a tool or help or some sort, it will become very difficult to keep track of all the tasks that will keep building up as the Fab Academy program continues. From managing all of my tasks, I have started using a free web app called Wudatime, which a friend of mine helped to develop. In the app, I can make task structures in three connected hierarchical layers; a top level (Fab Academy), a project (Website) and a task(write blog post #1). Each task can be supplemented with a further subdivision of to-do's. Each task and project has a self-set time limit, so I can keep track of the time I spend on each task, and make sure I don't spend too much time on one thing. I will use this app to help me optimize my efficiency.
3. Version Control // Mercurial
"This is going to make you very unhappy during the next couple of weeks", Neil said in the first lecture about Mercurial. A nice warning and something to look forward to. I started getting ready to use Mercurial by installing the Linux based open source operating system Ubuntu. Because my internal SSD hard drive did not allow me to make a large enough partition, I have installed Ubuntu on a bootable external hard drive. Today, 03.02, our local instructor gave a tuturial on Mercurial, now running in Ubuntu, so hopefully I will be comfortable with the program soon.