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nodeschool.io

I would like to present very interesting initiative for everyone interested in topics oriented around Node.js. If you are curious how to learn effectively about stuff available on the platform, how to use libraries effectively and write the most idiomatic code which is consistent with UNIX philosophy, please read this article further.

Why?

The major problem when you are learning new stuff is related with first step, even with a basic question “how to start”. This barrier is often related with new thinking or programming paradigm, new language, unknown environment or even unfamiliar API. For almost every technology we can find opinionated stuff on the Internet: multiple tutorials, guidelines (often it is not so hard to find two conflicting ones ) and blog posts with information how to work with technology in which we are interested. Moreover, in almost each case we still have a question back in our heads: “Is it a proper way to learn and work with it?”.

Learning process could be easier if we have one source of truth and best practices how to approach certain topics related with piece of technology which is interesting for us. For Node.js such initiative is called nodeschool.io.

Nodeschool Main Page

What?

Nodeschool is a series of interactive workshops, divided into two sections - core concepts and electives.

In the main concepts we have:

Electives are oriented around:

How to start?

At first you need to have npm and node executables - if you do not have them already on your machine, the most recommended place to start is here. Then you can install each workshop globally using Node Packaged Modules manager:

~ $ npm install -g learnyounode

In this example -g flag means “install package globally”, so it will be available as a executable on your machine.

Every single workshop is using the same command line interface and workflow. This eases the work with each of them. Moreover, assignments are well defined, descriptive and small enough to perform them as a daily code kata.

Workflow is oriented around invoking commands in the terminal. After starting the workshop executable without any parameters you will see the list of available assignments, like presented below:

learnyounode workshop

Then you should select first unresolved assignment from the list. After that you will see the description and guidelines how you should approach this task. Then you have two commands for testing and verifying prepared solution.

# Testing your solution:
~ $ learnyounode run <FILE_NAME_WITH_SOLUTION>
# Veryfing the prepared solution:
~ $ learnyounode verify <FILE_NAME_WITH_SOLUTION>

If solution is correct, the current assignment will be marked as resolved. Now you are ready to work with each workshop available on the main page.

I am the beginner in Node.js community - where should I start?

I will recommend to start with learn-you-node workshop and then move forward through the rest of core concepts. After that you are free to choose any from the interesting topics from electives group (e.g. related with specific framework).

I am more advanced member - how can I contribute?

You can contribute in several ways.

The easiest thing is to perform any workshop and check it in practice (especially with edge cases). Then you can fork repository related with it, fix the bugs, improve documentation and clarity of the steps, maybe even add missing scenarios and lessons. After that you can contribute back your changes to the community by providing a pull request to the workshop author.

Second option is related with local events. You can easily organize a new event in your city which will be oriented around whole nodeschool initiative (or even around just one type of workshops). There is a detailed guideline prepared by organization how to do this.

And finally, you can create a new workshop. In such vibrant and broad community you can easily find topic suitable for you. If you do not have a clue which could be suitable for you, you can look at the list of possible topics gathered here. If you already have an idea, you should fork the rvagg/workshopper project and start creating lessons. Then, you can add your project to the list of available workshops via github - then your workshop will be reviewed, validated and after successful acceptation it will be available as a official lesson on the main nodeschool page.