Some skills in this course are not concepts and not tasks — they are ways of working. Each tutorial teaches one of them once, so every other page can link here instead of explaining it again.
| Tutorial | The skill |
|---|---|
| Using This Site | Finding your way around this site quickly |
| Scavenger Hunt | A quick five-minute orientation across the course |
| Using Version Control | Three people editing one program without losing work |
| Reading a Traceback in Someone Else’s Code | Diagnosing a crash across several files |
| Writing Tests | Proving it works, and proving it still works |
| Profiling and Timing Code | Measuring instead of guessing |
| Writing Code Others Can Read | Code a stranger can pick up and change |
| Working in a Team | Roles, splitting work, and disagreeing well |
| Getting Unstuck | Being stuck well instead of spinning |
Five of these are new this year, and they are new for the same reason: you are no longer the only person who will ever touch your code. Version control, tests, measurements, reviews, and readable handovers are all answers to the same question — how does a group of people change one program without wrecking it?
Read three of these in week one
Using This Site takes five minutes. Using Version Control is the tool you will use every single class from Unit 4 onwards, and the first hour of it is the awkward part, so get the awkward part done early. Working in a Team is worth reading before your team forms, while you can still think about it calmly.