Welcome to Stanford CS106A :)

[Natasha Murashev]

Hi Ladies!!!

When I wrote the post on Women 2.0 asking to see if anyone else was interested in learning how to code, I expected maybe 1 or 2 responses if any. I am excited to see that there are 25 of you out there! Wow! I can't wait to start learning with all of you. Here are a few things I've thought of - let me know if I miss anything :)

How To Get Started

• All the course materials are online and free! Here is the link to the course page: http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=824a47e1-135f-4508-a5aa-866adcae1111
• Some of the software listed on the course page is not up to date, so if you have a newer computer, make sure to visit the student version of the course page: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/software/
• Here is the link to the book (free!): http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/docs/karel-the-robot-learns-java.pdf

Study Group Structure

I think it's going to get tough for all of us to stick to the same schedule, especially with holidays coming up. So it is completely ok to stay at your own pace, but keep these things in mind: 

• You will be asked to post a weekly update to the group every Sunday describing what you have done in the past week and anything else you want to share (tips, what you learned, what you were surprised by, etc...). That will hopefully keep everyone encouraged to do at least something every week :)
• If you do need more structure to get you going, I will be posting weekly "Suggested Assignments" for anyone who wants to follow along. 
• If you get stuck on anything, try to google the answer first (this is what programmers do, so we should get in the habit of it as well :). If you're still confused, post it to the group, and we will try to help you.
• I've started a blog to keep myself going on this. I will be posting my personal solutions and tips on there for the general community out there (knowing that others might see my code means I need to get it down perfectly!). When I was stuck on an assignment, I googled the answer to see if I can try to understand how others have solved the same problem, and didn't find too many answers. This is my way of contributing back to the community, since it is so amazing that this great class is free for everyone. This is also what the spirit of coding is about, since there are so many tools out there where you can ask questions and people will take the time to help you get the answer. If you're interested in contributing your solutions or tips to the blog, let me know and I'll be happy to add you as an author. If a few of you are interested, I can even rename the blog to something not about me (I started it before thinking of putting a group together). Kareltherobot.com is available, but not the Twitter handle. If you are excited about the blog and have ideas, let me know! 

Suggested Assignments

I recommend completing the following for this week - due by Sunday, November 6th:

• Download and set up Eclipse (the software you will be using): http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/cgi-bin/software/
• Complete watching Lectures 1 and 2 - the first lecture is more about class formalities, so you can probably skip most of it. If you watch it via the "View Now" links instead of YouTube, it'll break it out by sections, so you can skip the more administrative parts of the lectures. 
• Complete Problems 1 and 2 of the first assignment - make sure to scroll all the way down this page to get to it: http://see.stanford.edu/see/materials/icspmcs106a/assignments.aspx. You should do the assignment distributed after lecture 2 (not the lecture 4 one). 

San Francisco Bay Area Get-together

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'd love to have weekly in-person meetups where we can get to know each other, talk about what we worked on last week, and maybe even start doing hackathons and cool stuff like that. I'm working with Sasha from the amazing Women Who Code Meetup group to see how we can partner up (so we'll have other women who actually code to reach out to as well and get help / tips from there). 

Meanwhile, I'll be hosting a brunch the Sunday of November 6th. Please RSVP here: http://holler.to/uzjdSm. Once you click "Attend" a setting botton will show up, where you can turn on text message alerts to be part of the conversation :)

Anyone in Seattle? 

There is at least one person in Seattle, and I've reached out to my friend up there to see if she knows anyone else who might be interested. If you're in Seattle, let us know, so maybe we can get a meetup group going up there as well. 

Ok, wow, that was long! Let me know know if you have any questions or suggestions for the group. So excited to see this happening!!!

Natasha

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natasha murashev | co-founder, director of operations | holler.com | 415-691-5320 | holler.at/natasha

[Shelby Healy]

Hi Ladies,

  I'm in Seattle (I'm guessing you were referring to me?) - Lots of space at my office for meetups if there is anyone else interested!

Shelby

[Natasha Murashev]

I was actually referring to Dana! Great to see that there are at least two of you out there :)

[G]

This is great! Thanks :) I will try to complete the suggested homework. 

Ge

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Natasha Murashev <nat...@holler.com> wrote:

[Delanie West]

Thanks for getting us started!

[Terri Persico]

Hi Natasha,

Just finished the first week's assignment and wondering how you'd like us to report in?  BTW, super satisfying to get that little guy doing what I tell him to...I can now understand how this could become a self-fulfilling obsession ;)

Best, Terri

[Natasha Murashev]

Congratulations Terri! 

I'm totally obsessed with the little robot as well :) I made the assignment due next Sunday, so everyone has some time to work that into their regular schedule. Next Sunday, I was going to send out an email asking everyone to talk about their progress. 

Since you're a bit ahead, I recommend you get into the habit of committing your code publicly to github. The easiest way to do this is to download GitHub for Mac, and sync your Stanford Assignment Folder (your "repository") to github. That way, we can all have access to each others code, and by posting it publicly, we'll also be helping others who are learning find the solutions. It will also force us to write better code, since we'll be writing it for others to use. 

Otherwise, if you have time, the next suggested assignment is: 

• Watch Lecture 3: http://see.stanford.edu/see/lecturelist.aspx?coll=824a47e1-135f-4508-a5aa-866adcae1111
• Complete Problems 2 and 3 of the first assignment: http://see.stanford.edu/see/materials/icspmcs106a/assignments.aspx. If you're really stuck, examples of possible solutions for Assignment 1 are located here: https://github.com/NatashaMurashev/Stanford-CS-106A/blob/master/Assignment1/CollectNewspaperKarel.java

Congratulations again!

Natasha

[Theresa Persico]

Great thanks much!

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Terri Persico, Founder/CEO

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