As a first step toward acquiring the skills covered in the Demos-n-Deets demos, you must read the demos; however, you will not learn much by simply reading them in a passive manner. Instead, you should digest the demos in a more active manner. Thus, the active reading assignments are designed to help ensure that you get the most out of your first reading of the demos.
Instructions
For each active reading assignment, follow these key instructions:
Perform all the steps. As you read through each assigned demo, you must perform all the steps of the demo on your machine. This often involves starting by downloading a base app and making the changes described in the demo to that app.
Think deeply and make sure you understand each step. Resist the urge to do mindless copying and pasting of code, because it will undermine your engagement with the material, and thus, decrease the learning benefits. Instead, try to think deeply about each step, so you are clear on the rationale for the step and how it works.
Name screenshots with the exact names specified. Each active reading assignment will have specific instructions regarding what to submit—generally screenshots of your work. Each required screenshot for an active reading has a required label (e.g., sa2-ar-03). For each screenshot, the name of the screenshot should match the specified label exactly.
Important! All screenshots must include your computer’s desktop in the background so that it is recognizable as your desktop. Also, all screenshots of web pages must display the entire URL of the page in the browser’s location bar. (Watch out, as some browsers like to hide parts of the URL unless you click on it.)
How to Start Each Demo
Each time you start an active reading of a demo, follow these steps:
cd into your workspace folder.
In subsequent steps, you will download a project working tree, and this is where it will go.
Find the “Base App Code Branch” link in the demo webpage.
It links to a GitHub repo that contains the base app. It also mentions the branch that the base app is on.
git clone the base app repo, giving it a custom name, like sa1-ar-model-classes.
The custom name is needed because you will be cloning the same repo for multiple demos.
cd into the new working tree.
git switch to the base app branch specified in the demo.
If you don’t switch to the correct branch, the project may lack key files and code necessary to the demo steps to work correctly.
Open the working directory in VS Code, bundle install/rails db:migrate && rails db:seed, and begin the demo.