The Iron Yard - Day 01

Day 01 of coding bootcamp is in the books.

We have seventeen people in our class ranging from “checking this out” to seasoned developers looking to update their skills or get a better handle on the fundamentals. The story from person to person seems very similar; we are all looking to get into the tech industry and want a career that can be jump-started here at The Iron Yard.

After introductions we got settled in to our classroom in Building K, which is just a little walk from the main Building C. We were promised a fast-paced difficult journey, and they did not disappoint, even on Day 01!

The first material our instructor Aaron covered consisted of command line basics (open, ., /, path, cd, .., ls, ~, mkdir, yo, touch, subl). Then we jumped to HTML and went through the form of the page and the behavior of <span> and <div> tags. Lastly, CSS basics with a great deal about how to use classes in conjunction with an HTML file. Other goodies: Chrome Inspector (😍) and Digital Color Meter, both very useful tools.

Our assignment was to recreate a page layout using HTML and CSS based on a picture of a layout. At first glance I thought that this was a fairly easy assignment. After spending about six hours on it, wading through several rookie mistakes, I have a better understanding of the challenges that lie ahead!

[Mike]: Wait… you can put a <div> inside of a <div>?? Then, where do I add padding… but I thought that was the margin…

I will learn. We will all learn.

My favorite things I learned on Day 01:

• The “open” command is useful in the shell (I know it seems obvious!)
• Digital Color Meter allows me to find any color and replicate it
• It helps to read all of the directions in the homework…as a former teacher, this should be stock for me!

I did finish my homework and am excited to see what they cook up for us today!

As they say here at the The Iron Yard, To Infinity and Beyond!

Written by Mike Mathew who lives and works in Dallas building useful things. Sometimes he posts.