Merlin Mission Manager
Prerequisites[edit]
Introduction[edit]
The Merlin Mission Manager is your personal control center to Merlin's Challenge Evaluation System. Challenge's provide both you and your guide with objective evidence of your skill level as you develop expertise in a particular topic. As such, Missions serve both to provide you with valuable feedback as you are developing your skills and as a demonstration of mastery.
Missions[edit]
At various points along your pathway you'll be asked to complete one or more missions. Missions provide a logical grouping of one or more challenges, generally about a particular subject area or, alternatively, a summary of multiple topics. Just as wiki experiences are labelled using the Wnnnn scheme, missions follow similar rules. Missions will always begin with Mnnnn where the nnnn of the mission usually matches the nnnn of the wiki. Missions also have a two digit suffix, ss. Lower-numbered suffixes generally assist you with skill development, while higher-numbered suffixes provide demonstration of mastery.
At any given time, a Mission will be in one of the following states:
- Not yet eligible - Your guide will provide you with missions at an appropriate pace, so not all missions are available at any given time. You may see a mission name appear in your mission list with an eligible date in the future. If so, the mission will become available to you on that date.
- Eligible, but not yet accepted - On the eligible date you'll be permitted to accept the mission.
- Accepted - Once you've accepted a mission you'll be able to view a list of all included challenges and begin working on solutions. From this point until you either submit the mission or until the mission expires, you'll be able to work on the challenges of the mission.
- Completed - After you've completed all of the required challenges (and as many optional challenges as you'd like) you'll be able to complete the mission. At this point, you'll receive credit for the challenges.
- Expired - Missions are available for a limited time. The Merlin Mission Manager will let you know how much time you have until a mission expires. After this point, you'll no longer be able to complete the mission.
Challenges[edit]
A single mission is comprised of one or more challenges. Each challenge is an opportunity to improve a particular skill and evaluate your mastery of that skill. In almost all cases the Merlin Mission Manager will provide you with instantaneous feedback regarding your results, enabling you to continuously improve your skills.
Within any given mission, challenges will be marked as either required or optional. Of course, it's to your own benefit to complete every available challenge even if it's not strictly required.
Interface[edit]
The Merlin Mission Manager is available as an easy-to-use command line interface. To get started, open a secure shell client and log on to the codermerlin server:
john-williams@ssh.codermerlin.com
After you’re connected, you’ll be prompted to enter your password. After a successful logon, you'll land in the "shell". Be sure you're in your home directory. (Remember that you can always get back to your home directory using the "cd" command without any arguments.)
john-williams@codermerlin:~$ cd
