Getting Started
There are a couple of things that we need to do before we can begin going through this book.
Learning to code
There are already too many resources to learn how to code on the internet today; therefore, such content will not be taught directly in this book. Instead, I’d recommended to use Codecademy to learn Java.
Codecademy is a great place to learn how to write Java code. To simplify things further, we can use our GitHub account to sign in to Codecademy as well.
Here’s the steps to get started:
Navigate to Codecademy’s sign up page.
Sign in through GitHub. If you don’t have a GitHub account, then read the section on GitHub later in this page.
Go to this page. This is the course that teaches enough Java to get started.
Start learning!
Required Software
To continue with this book, there’s some important software that we must install. This section provides links to each resource, but any troubleshooting is left to the reader. If there are multiple options on a screen, the most likely solution to know which to select is simplhy read the page. It’s shocking how many mistakes happen because somebody just didn’t read the description. Take your time, and read.
Note
This is not all of the software that will be necessary throughout the season. This is only an installation of what is necessary to continue with this book.
Git
Git is a version control system (covered in 1.2 - What is git?) that we use to manage the growing structure and history of our project.
Navigate to the Git installation page. Select your OS, and continue to the OS-specific download steps.
WPILib + VS Code
Important
If you have a pre-existing version of VS Code installed, you still need to do this step.
VS Code is software that is meant to help write code. Think of it like a Microsoft Word app, but for code. It offers advanced features like code autocompletion, and is what we need to be able to build code and deploy (send) it to the robot.
You can find the latest releases here. Scroll down to the Downloads section, and select your operating system. Read this part of the docs of the WPILib docs to guide you through what to select if you’re unsure. This page tells you what buttons to press for each step along the way.
Tip
It doesn’t matter if you select “Install for this user” and “Install for all users”, so that’s up to you. Mer
GitHub
Team 3414 uses GitHub to remotely store and share our project’s code. We’ll talk about GitHub in much more detail in 1.3 - GitHub.
Creating a new account
Note
If you’ve already got a GitHub account, you can skip this step.
To create a new account, go to the GitHub signup page. Enter your information and follow the steps to configure your account.
Which email to use?
For GitHub, you should avoid using school-provided emails. This is because GitHub is a great start to develop your portfolio, but if your email gets deleted, you’ll lose access to your account upon graduation. Use a personal email to make sure that you have access to your account.
Join teams’ Organization
The next step is to talk to a programming mentor on the team to make sure that you’re part of the correct organization. Only students who are part of the organization for the team are allowed to make contributions to the codebase, as per our security configuration.