Code Perspective

This being my first site I’ve set up from top to bottom I wasn’t able to find an install guide for Wordpress using the coda IDE for Mac OS X, so i figured I would write one. To follow this tutorial you will need a full/trial version of coda, the latest Wordpress CMS release, a web server up and running(remote or local). If you’re running a local web server make sure it has all the requirements installed to use Wordpress. That’s it, let’s start it up…

1. The first step is to install Wordpress, if this isn’t done then go ahead and install Wordpress now(a tutorial will be coming on how to do this a bit later ).
2. With coda, create a new site… To do this click on the site’s icon in the menu bar and click “Add Site”).

Click on the site's icon then the add site button

3. Once you have done that and filled out all the information that coda requires to set up your site within the site’s area, you should now see a preview of your site within the site’s area of coda.
4. Double click on your site and it should connect to the web server and display your web server’s file system. It should look something like the picture below(may not be exact depending on your web server’s specifications).

5. Once you can view your site then you should see the root folder /www/ in your server’s root directory. This is where you will be installing Wordpress. Drag the Wordpress folder you downloaded into the /www/ folder. With coda you can directly drag the folder over from your desktop. Once that’s finished you should see a folder in the root of your directory called “Wordpress” or whatever the name of your Wordpress folder was.
6. Rename the Wordpress folder to “blog” or whatever you want the Wordpress CMS to be a part of.

7. Once you have it renamed you should see a bunch of php/css files inside your now renamed Wordpress folder.
8. Wordpress should now be installed for your site. You can access it by going to http://www.your-url.com/blog/. And if you want to make changed as the administrator then access the admin panel by going to your-url/blog/wp-admin/.

That’s it, you can now take advantage of the power of the Wordpress CMS. In a later tutorial i’ll explain how to install and use the JQuery framework within your Wordpress theme.

Cheers

So since the site is very well nearing completion after a couple months in the development stages, I would like to officially welcome you to my first website. Code perspective is a blog/ personal portfolio on software, IT, the industry and everything in between. Hopefully there will be some tutorials that will help you out or just some facts you find amusing, either way welcome and see you again soon!

Cheers

At our school, the way they have the course schedule set up, all of your courses are pre-selected for you. This leaves no room for specialization and leads to a degree that is similar to the person’s beside you. Where does this put you in the eye’s of the employer coming out of the program? With the exception of marks and maybe the odd bit of experience if you’re outgoing enough, it puts you on the same level. In a potentially collapsing economy, diversity is key. If you can diversify the courses offered, students will be better prepared for industry.

Students adaptability is the key to their survival, when they get out of school. I heard a statistic once, that said 80% of the students graduating will not be coding in the same language(s) that they took in school. If students have the ability to specialize, even with a few courses, it could lead to more prepared graduates.

Things like game design and graphics could have the ability to be taught as early on as second year. If students are given the choice to take these types of courses, then the interest would spark an increased learning potential for the students, as opposed to sticking them in classes that are “required”. This of course is from a students point of view, but I think employers would see the significance in this method of action as well.

Cheers

This is an interesting question… Currently we have been given a project in which the back end of the database is provided along with screenshots of all the screens we are allowed to “use”. I find this method extremely limiting to students when it comes to developing abilities “outside the box”. Should students not be allowed to develop their own ideas and thought processes when it comes to programming? Potentially focusing on design and development, and work side by side with technical aspects of the language?

In my opinion concentrating on both design aspects and technical programming concepts will lead to a greater IT work force. How in industry today can you expect perfection in programs from students who are not taught that in school? When they come out then it is left to the employers to teach design, and good technical programming concepts and let’s be honest, they just do not have the time or the resources to do that. So in fact good design principles and practices need to be forced at the school level to ensure a better IT work force when students get into industry and are ready to jump right in!

On a side note, as a proposal, what is there was time set aside during school, for credits, for project work on your own? Google is a great example of this allowing a single day a week for their employees to work on projects of their own or even to go and help the community. And again, they write some of the best code in the world. This is something that could be potentially adopted at the school level to promote creativity and a passion for coding!

Cheers