Congratulations on being selected for the Spring 2016 cohort of The Iron Yard, and welcome to the class. This is an intense program, and Kelly and I are really looking forward to meeting each of you in person and getting to know you better over the course of the upcoming 12 weeks. We're also really excited about teaching and mentoring you all, seeing what awesome things you'll build and what interesting ways you'll approach the assignments and projects in the class.
If you're the type who wants to know where you're going before you leave, then likely you'll want to read the syllabus first, which lays out the basic roadmap of the class. Details are intentionally withheld, as the pacing of the class and material is very dependent on you, the students.
Here's a cold reality many of you already realize from your own experience: it's very difficult to learn a technical skill like programming from just watching videos and answering questions. There's an additional reality: it's also very difficult in a short amount of time. Wait, what? Isn't that what you're coming to us for? Well... Yes, but no.
Learning -- the productive acquisition of practicable skill -- comes slowly in fits and spurts, but a period of highly focused attention on the practice and development of a skill can allow you to make great leaps of progress. That is what this is: a highly focused period of intense, immersive activity. It's exciting, exhausting (even for us instructors), and empowering. However, in order to be most successful, you need to be primed for that experience.
If any of these skills are a struggle for you, that doesn't mean that you'll be a horrible developer. These aren't prerequisites for being a successful developer, just potential limitations in an environment as fast-paced as this one. If there's something in this list that scares you, ask us. Chances are we have some resources that you can use to get up to speed on one or more of these topics.
In order to be most successful in this (or any) course, your brain needs some initial exposure to the terms and concepts that we're going to cover (very quickly) in class. You don't need a lot -- 20 hours minimally but maybe 100 hours or so would be optimal -- and you don't need years of prior experience -- 30 to 90 days prior to class is sufficient.
As a first step, complete our prep-work assignment: 00 -- Ready Player One. This serves as an initial gauge of your individual place in the learning process and gets you the initial exposure you need to be successful on Day 1. Please don't treat this (or any) assignment as a game level to be beaten; your goal is not just to complete the assignment once but to fulfill the learning objectives by becoming familiar with the material.
Once the course begins, you'll use a similar process to submit assignments and demonstrate progress. Each assignment will be delivered as a README.md file in the appropriately numbered folder, and any code that we produce together in class will be in that folder alongside it. You'll be responsible for opening an Issue in this repo and including links to your work for review. For details about that process, see About Assignments in the wiki.