An Introduction

Prior to this course, I had little to no experience with in-depth coding and interacting with a computer on a more technical level. After 2 weeks, I’ve definitely gained a deeper understanding of these technical skills that I thought I would never learn.

Linux & Unix

Being able to interact with servers using Linux and Unix has been challenging but very interesting at the same time. Like any language it’s all about understanding the syntax and figuring out when to use certain statements. Interacting with a computer remotely is different but very cool.

GitHub & Open Source

I knew about the importantance of open source information, but I didn’t know about the tools that are available for creating and editing code. GitHub is a very useful tool for collaborating with the public and the ability to access public projects and work with them on the fly is fantastic. I’ve enjoyed just being able to browse through public repositories for projects I’ve found to be interesting. In my other course, INLS 613 - Text Mining, I’ve looked through GitHub to find coding ideas for my group for parsing the text of Yelp Reviews. I hope to work in the field of data science after I graduate and I am looking forward to extensitvely using GitHub in the future.

Website Development

Prior to the course I’ve used programs like WordPress or other rudimentary tools to create functioning websites. Although we are not going to use HTML to build websites, learning about the structure and sytax of HTML has given me greater insight into how the Web came to be. Markdown has been very intuitive to use and it is a great tool for beginners on how to create a website. The syntax is simple and all it takes is some tinkering to create a good end product.