1. Project management and documentation#

1.1 Beginning and introduction to the tools#

Get to know eachother#

During the first couple of lessons, we took the time with our main teacher Denis Terwagne to get to know eachother and the main reason why we decided to follow this cours. Most of the students here are from different horizons and that makes this cours so interesting! I was quite excited to begin. First and foremost as I said in my introduction, I’m a proper beginner with all the tool that I used and the environment where I have been launched (even the vocabulary used by the teachers and on the website You might also notice some english errors (forgive me for this). I decided to writte the entire documentation in english to force myself to think in english and who knows to improve at the same time.

Why do we require to documentation ?#

We entered in a process where we where told that the documentation is a key duty and that we must not neglect this part. But why is it so ? * If someone has to produce the same work as me or use steps that I’ve gone through, they’ll be able to find their way around easily if the documentation is done properly. * I might need to reproduce some steps of this work later for whatever reason. Instead of start to process again, I’ll find easily my path and avoid the same mistakes.

1.2 Different languages and tools#

Linux Command line#

Most people use what we call Graphical user interface or GUI. I wasn’t able to define GUI and got to know more here. GUI is quite usefull and easy to work with but Denis advised use to begin with Linus Command line. However Linux Command line or Command line user Interface (CLI) is a powerfull tool that “interacts” with you and helps you to do some tedious work. It’s like speaking with a robot and asking him to help you. If you want to learn more about CLI click here. There are a few CLI commands that are good to know like ls, cd, mkdir, cp, mv, rm, man,…More explanations on this website.

Git and path to the beginning#

The CLI that I chose to use because of my Windows computer is Git and more precisely Git Bash. Git is a decentralised version management system, mainly used to track the history of changes in a project’s source code. It allows developers to efficiently manage the different versions of a project, collaborate with other people, track the evolution of code and manage branches independent of the main project. Thanks to this website, Git Bash I could install Git Bash easily without danger.

Once Git installed, I had to configure it locally. What does that mean? It means that I’ll start using Git from my computer, be an author that works on a project and upload a website in our case. To configure Git like I did please follow these steps: The full name and email address should match the ones you use in GitLab.

In your terminal, add your full name. For example:

git config --local user.name "Alex Smith"

Add your email address. For example:

git config --local user.email "your_email_address@example.com"

To check the configuration, run:

git config --local --list

Git is now locally configured and needs to be linked with a server where my modifications will be considered. We have been introduced to Gitlab (more info), a server accessible to everyone who wants to be aware about my progress and the path I have followed.

To have a link between my local computer and the remote (=means distand) server, SSH keys must be applied before any documentation. SSH keys (Secure Shell) is a secure communications protocol. The connection protocol requires encryption keys to be exchanged at the start of the connection. It won’t be readable by a Human but is not without danger.
Why is it so? * The communication between Git and Gitlab requieres SSH keys for security * Don’t need to writte my username and password each time I followed a really complete Gitlab tutorial that you can follow here.

I encountered quite a big problem when my public and private keys where done. I followed the last step of the tutorial named “Verify that you can connect” because Git Bash gave me back as response Permission denied (publickey). I couldn’t find my error and Denis neither. My SSH keys where present as I saw it on Gitlab. . I eventually decided to “Revoke” the SSH keys I made and try the recipe again. Stangely it worked on the second time.

Cloning Git repository to my local compuyer was also something to do before the work getting serious. Thanks to the steps on this tutorial I managed to create a repository and open it on my text editor (I’m using VSCodium). What’s amazing about VSCodium is that there is a terminal integreted in it that does the same job as Git Bash and I don’t need to open the app each time.

Finally, the usefull steps to modify my Fablab experiment website are the followings: git add -A git commit -m "comment" –> really important to writte a comment otherwise you’ll forget the steps you have been through. git push

Markdown language#

VSCodium is a text editor that uses Markdown. Markdown is a lightweight, easy-to-learn mark-up language that allows you to format text by adding structured elements such as headings, lists, links, images, etc. It offers a simple alternative to HTML that is fastidious to read and writte. Thanks to this tutorial I learned really quickly the Markdown language.

Images#

As you see on this page, I inserted some pictures and photos. These are at first very heavy documents. Thanks to several tools, you have the possibility to reduce them and the final heaviness of the document is manageable. I’m using GIMP that I downloaded thanks to the microsoft store very easily. Thanks to this easy tutorial I learned how to compress, resize, crop and bash my images. As you may notice, I’m using a Windows and by browsing the pages of other students, I bumped into Altay’s Fabzero experiment and thanks to the default photo editor of Windows, the same job as GIMP can be done and in my opinion in a easier way.