ALX Software Engineer Program Cheatsheet
👉🏽 This page is your go-to resource once you attended the Let’s Talk Session or watched the recording.
Here, you’ll find practical tips, engaging tutorials, and reliable links to help you navigate through your journey with ease, in addition to what discussed during the call
Time Management
Read about effective time management strategies in this insightful article: Time Management Article
Task Prioritization and Project Efficiency
Learn how to prioritize tasks and approach projects efficiently Project and Coding Efficiency Tutorial
Decide which are the prioritary tasks for your day (a realistic number, ex. 3) and concentrate on completing those
Navigating Projects
Navigate your projects effectively with these steps
Check Learning Objectives.
Review foundational concepts.
Utilize available resources.
Explore YouTube tutorials for visual learning.
🟢 Actively participating in PLDs and find peers to work with
Here some suggetions from your colleagues: 1. Take the initiative and organize a PLD yourself - you just need to share an online meeting link, with suggested time, date and topic and invite your peers to join 2. Reach out to a peer in another Cohort who already did the project, to ask them if they want to participate in the PLDs 3. Engage on your Discord Cohort channel (ex. #cohort19 ) by asking or answering a question, or sharing your knowledge or experience - Find friends before colleagues!
🟢 Fuelling motivation
If it’s true that Motivation comes from within, it is your daily job to nurture it! Fortunately, you do not have to do it alone! You can benefit from a thriving Community of people! Hereunder you can find a selection of interviews and session recordings that can help you fuel your motivation and carry on:
Graduates unplugged: the story of Peter and Rose who speak about how they face a problem they haven’t encountered before, how the research and handle anxiety - watch their interview
From Doubt to Determination: Yassir was a C13 learner who nearly gave up on graduating because he was feeling hopeless. The help of some of his colleagues helped him to find strenght and continue his journey: he finally graduated with flying colours. Read their interview
If you sometimes wonder if is it all worthy, Terry’s story will clear your sight on where the Program can lead you to: thanks to her ability in the Portfolio Project and in showcasing her skills, she found her first entry-level job as a back-end development days after graduation as part of Cohort 12. Watch her interview here
💻Technical Issues💻
- 🔵 Sandbox Troubleshooting: Solve Sandbox issues with these tutorials
- 🔵 SSH and Servers: Understand SSH and server concepts
- 🔵 Checker Explained: Decode the Checker in under a minute
- 🔵 C Navigation: Clear doubts in C navigation with this 7-minute tutorial
- 🔵 Ubuntu Setup: Set up Ubuntu 20.04 Windows Subsystem for Linux easily
- 🔵 Git SSH Authentication: Learn about Git SSH authentication with this demo
- 🔌Offline Learning and Coding🔌
No stable internet access? No problem! Follow these steps:
🔵 Download project materials for offline access
Click ctrl + P or the right tab of the mouse and select “print”, then select “PDF” as destination
🔵 Set up your local coding environment when accessing the sandbox (for windows or mac OS)
You can set up a working environment using the following setup to have a similar environment (Ubuntu 20.04) like the Sandbox on your local machine. Then you can install your favorite editor vi, vim, emacs on the docker or wsl and also all the libraries, programming languages you need to work on the project. Then you can work on the projects offline. Follow the steps highlighted in this Project page
🔵 Access offline documentation for your programming languages and frameworks
All languages, frameworks, and libraries can be used offline. Here you can explore Python, C++, Ruby, PHP, Swift, React, Angular, and Django offline documentation:-
🔵 Stable Internet Access Alternatives
If you lack stable internet, consider these options: - Seek places with free Wi-Fi, like bars, libraries, coworking spaces, or university study rooms. - Utilize mobile hotspot or tethering from your smartphone. - Invest in a travel Wi-Fi router for reliable internet access on the go.
🔵 Collaboration Tools and Backup Solutions
Work on group projects efficiently using Git for version control. Plan ahead, prioritize tasks, and back up your work regularly to avoid data loss during internet outages.
🔵 Alternative Devices
Utilize tablets or cloud services like DigitalOcean if you lack a PC and follow Youssef’s advises (on Discord as @youssef.charif.hamidi_070222): I downloaded a working version of termux on Frandroid because it’s no longer available on the Play store, so I started to leverage the most power of shell scripting to gain time and energy (because I should mention that I type with only one finger),I also studied well Vim shortcuts which also have been a game changer. The problem I usually encounter is some technologies like MySQL server or Docker aren’t supported in termux (as far as I know) , so for now, I am profiting of DigitalOcean 200$ free creative on our Github Student Pack and work on a rented Ubuntu machine when I don’t have what I need locally on termux (reliable internet connection is a must have in this case)
Use your phone, as Abdullah Mohammed Hussain (on Discord as @abdulmohusain) suggests: download termux and connect to your web terminal using ssh.