Gosh, it’s taken me just about 8 weeks to sit down and actually write this first post. But better late than never, right?

These past 8 week at Makers Academy have been a real whirlwind, with little time/head space for much else other than code. So firstly, I would like to apologise for being rubbish at replying/being in contact over this summer :(

I decided to write this blog for several reasons. Often I get asked what I do at Makers Academy, and so I thought it would be good to write a little about what life is like there. Also, as I am encountering and learning so much new stuff, I have often found that the best way to get to grips with things is by explaining key concepts and methodologies by writing them down. I hope in the process that I can help other people understand them better too. I really appreciate comments and feedback, so if anything is unclear, or could be explained in a more intuitive manner, please do not hesitate to get in contact!

It’s fairly tough to explain to friends and family exactly what it is I am doing without using techinical terms and jargon. Although the blog will be somewhat on the technical side, I have written a brief guide to tech terms to explain some of their usage. In this way I hope my blog will be accessible to my friends and family too (should you wish to have a read - no obligation!)

One of the things that I love about the tech world is the quirky names and conventions for stuff. From Cucumber, to Capybara to spies, you’re never really sure what reality you are in. But you just go along with it. Anyway, one of my favourite conventions is the ‘Hello, World!’ convention. The first encounter that anyone has with programming is traditionally writing a ‘Hello World’ programme - that is, a programme that outputs the string ‘Hello, World!’

In Ruby this is fairly simple. All you need to do is 

puts 'Hello, World!'

In honour of this convention, I have called my blog ‘Hello, World’. This is my ‘Hello, World’, to the world of tech.

Hannah