TeenHacks Long Island Quickstart Guide
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  1. Basics

Coding-Related Basics

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Last updated 4 months ago

  • Create an account on Github

    • Use this to learn how to use

    • Install Git locally

  • Set up an /code editor

    • VS Code is a good starting option

    • If you want to use an online editor (not highly recommended), check out:

      • Replit (if you've ever used Replit before, note that it is now much more restrictive than it used to be)

      • Glitch

  • You can look for free resources for anything you might need.

  • Try to get to some level of basic coding proficiency (many people assume they can quickly pick everything up at the event and are sorely disappointed)

    • With a relatively small time investment, you can get to a baseline level of coding proficiency through Kaggle's .

    • (Aside) Learning in the future:

      • If you want a designed curriculum to learn quickly upfront before unleashing yourself, check out . Then move on to the second bullet point.

      • If you feel comfortable just learning by doing then...just do! Try to build projects and search things up when you don't get them. Adopt a mindset of (the answer 80% of the time: way harder than you thought but at least you got to learn a ton).

        • Potentially get started using Hack Club's and .

      • There's no clear evidence that any method is better than the other so be very in tune with yourself. If you feel like you aren't learning best in your current method, switch to something else. Don't fall prey to the !

        • In general, it might be better to have less of a "I'm learning how to program mindset" and more of a "I'm becoming a programmer." You can never completely "learn" programming.

  • If you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you will most likely have to search things up and ask others for help. Don't be ashamed of that. Again, you can never really completely learn coding, and most people agree that learning how to do things based on projects you want to build is better than memorizing a ton of things just because you expect to use them in the future.

git
IDE
here
course
Harvard's CS50
"how hard can it be"
jams
workshops
sunk cost fallacy
Stop trying to try and try.