deck.rb presentation

Foundational Programming Skills

This presentation covers the basic skills required to be a programmer...

...that don't involve actually writing code.

The House/Rooms/Drawers Metaphor
- directories store files and keep everything in your ‘house’ organized

ls
cd
pwd
echo
touch
cat
mv
cp
rm

Explain where home and root are located in relation to all directories.
Explain difference between absolute paths (starting with a /) and relative paths.

text editor vs. word processor
- similarities and differences
Have group open editor, create and save file with explanation of how and where files are stored.
- after change, go to command line and cat the file to see
Explain file extensions and file types.
- File types tell the editor how to color the special words in each language.
Explain difference between the buffer (in the editor’s memory) and the file (stored on disk).
- Emphasize the importance of saving the buffer to a file before trying to run it with ruby.
- "Save" makes things unsafe

Programming language as an agreed set of rules about syntax for writing source code that is sent to the interpreter and translated into byte code.
Explain that byte code is the binary that machines understand and use for executing instructions.
Use metaphor that CPU is like a guy in a factory executing commands that it is handled, and the source code are those instructions.
Explain differences between compiled vs. dynamic languages.
Tie everything together by explaining that source code are instructions that are translated into language that machines understand and can execute.

Very briefly explain how a computer works and all the moving parts (literally) starting with hard drive, memory, and CPU.
Give the group basic understanding of where the source code is stored and how and where it is executed.

The OS is a program that runs other programs
- the term "multitasking" actually started with computers and migrated to common usage
It also helps programs communicate with hardware (video, memory, disk, network...)