JS101 Session 4 April, general overview

[katjad]

It's quite a while ago we had our last session, and I've neglected making an update here..

I want to take the opportunity and just write a general post about where we're at at the moment, what projects we are doing etc.

JavaScript101 Beginners
Beginners here does not necessarily mean JavaScript beginners, or beginners at programming but just people new to the group. At the last session, there were quite a few newcomers which was nice, but made me aware it would be good to have a clear process for people to join - think we'd discussed that before as well. Last time @rinse0ut got everybody set up with Git so they could clone our project, which I think was a good way. - In addition to that, I think it's good for people to know that we are not really teaching JS, it's not a course, rather what we are doing comes from the shared interests of people. Saying that, I think it might be worth having one kind of "formal", sequential element as well. - I've been thinking we could each session do a little 10-15 min presentations about functions (building up from the basics to higher-order functions to, gasp, functional programming). This could be linked to people working on related coding challenges. - One of my tasks for the JS101 website was to set up a Roadmap page and I've written some things that might help new members to decide what to work on. Later on we could have a set of questions on the site..
In short, I think a process would be good to

• show people, if they don't know already, directions they could go (learning resources, contributing to our projects) and help decide what to do, or what to ask for help with (setting up coding environment or Git for example)
• be welcoming and be clear, that you can join at any skill level including total beginner
• make clear how the group works, and make it easy for both potential new member and group to see what they could work on

JS101 site
https://github.com/CodeHubOrg/javascript101
This is well underway so as it was the Easter holiday a bit of a hiatus, but I'm sure will pick up again! Have got all the static pages now I think (though not all the content). This will be our main playground for the group. We are working with GitHub issues to distribute tasks (they can also be self-assigned). Everybody who wants to become part of our GitHub team, please let me know! Thanks @rinse0ut for setting it up and coordinating, and also everybody else who contributed for the good work so far!

JS101 app (to become resources section of the site)
https://github.com/CodeHubOrg/organisations-database
This has been going on for a long time, but as it is just a learning project I think that is fine. Nevertheless will be good to release something soon. And it will be nice to have something to collect and show the resources we are using - We had decided on React for the app, than Flux was added and a data persistence layer, then Flux switched to Redux, React Router added and so on. It is quite complex, but as we discussed last time, besides React and Redux being sought-after skills, after learning something like that, other stuff will become easier. Currently mainly working on it: @wingedeel @Gicela and me, but everybody welcome

Plus there's JS101 handbook, React lab and various other projects! See https://github.com/codehuborg/

Scrum
Ajara, whom some of us know from Women's Tech Hub (and who actually came to the first JS101 meetups :) ) has kindly offered to create a Product Backlog and a Sprint backlog with us, and then do a review 2 weeks later. This will only happen in June (probably 20th), but maybe it will actually be more useful when we are a bit further? - I don't know if we should do it just on the app, or the JS101 site. Would be good to hear opinions. Perhaps the JS101 site is better as more people working on it?

Looking forward to Tuesday!

@CodeHubOrg/js2017