Page Comparison

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1. Git: What is it and why?

   1. Git is a version control system and GitHub is an internet hosting service using the version control that Git provides. If you are not familiar with Git, you can find a great presentation on what Git is here. Some other resources include common git commands, CLI commands, and what Git is (if you get the gist you do not need to read through all of it).

   2. In order to set up Git on your computer please follow these steps (after creating a GitHub account if you do not already have one). Make sure to do the authentication step so that your computer is tied to your GitHub account.

   3. FINISHLINE ONLY: Now that you have Git installed and have a GitHub account, clone the repository from here to your computer, potentially using git clone in your preferred CLI (i.e. Terminal/Powershell; please use Powershell over Command Prompt on Windows) to pull the project down to your computer. 

   4. LAUNCHPAD ONLY: Go to this invite link and follow the GitHub classroom instructions to get the repo. clone the repository to your computer using git clone.

2. NodeJS: Version 14 16 18 Please

   1. Ensure that you have Node.js v18 installed. Any iteration of version 18 will do as long as it is version 18! (Make sure to pick an installer that corresponds to your operating system) https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v18.17.1

   2. Check the box to install any additional tools during installation to ensure functionality with VSCode while installing (don’t worry if there are a couple errors here - this tends to happen on new installs).

   3. After installation, confirm that the version is some variant of 18 with the command node -v.

3. NPM & Yarn

   1. Navigate to the folder of the cloned repository using your CLI (via the cd command).

   2. If you’re on Windows: run Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned to prevent some future problems with yarn

   3. In your CLI, run npm install -g yarn.

   4. Run yarn install to instruct npm to install all the necessary packages.

4. VSCode

   1. Download VSCode for your OS https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Database

Docker is the new method to run the database. If you’re a returning developer and still have the old way, please migrate to docker, we will be unable to support using postgres now.

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1. To test that things are working, run yarn install and then yarn start in the CLI (in the root directory) and go to an example API route. For Launchpad you can go to localhost:4001/ FinishLine: localhost:3001/users.

   1. Then go to localhost:3000 (FinishLine) or localhost:4000 (Launchpad) to see the dashboard (if it does not launch automatically)! Feel free to take a look around! You may need to open an incognito tab.

2. IDE: VSCode

   1. We use VSCode at NER. You can use something else, but we won’t be able to help you if you have problems. VSCode is pretty industry standard though, so it’s very good to know.

   2. Click File > Open Folder then navigate to the repo and open it

   3. There should be a popup in the bottom right asking you if you want to install the recommended extensions. Click install.

      1. If for some reason this doesn’t show up, the following are the mandatory VSCode extensions. You can install them manually by clicking the extensions tab on the left (it looks like building blocks) and searching for them:

         1. Jest (orta.vscode-jest)

         2. Prisma (prisma.prisma)

         3. ESLint (dbaeumer.vscode-eslint)

         4. Prettier (esbenp.prettier-vscode)

      2. And the optional ones (for a better experience):

         1. Babel (mgmcdermott.vscode-language-babel)

         2. Material Icon Theme (pkief.material-icon-theme)

3. Congrats!

   1. You now (theoretically) have a functioning environment! Congratulations! If not, please look at the FAQ page, and if that doesn’t help, look for further help in the #software_env-setup slack channel (more info down below). Once again, here is the link to the repo (and here is the link to the outdated repo which still holds a lot of useful information).

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