Wiki

Within these castle walls be forged Mavens of Computer Science ...

— Merlin, The Coder

Introduction

Most likely, you're reading this page in a browser. If so, you've already accessed the wiki! A wiki is a knowledge base, a place where people can go to learn about a variety of topics. What differentiates a wiki from many other sites on the internet is its collaborative approach to editing the contents and structure of the site. Most wikis, including this one, allow willing participants to create an account and contribute to the site. This process enables wikis to grow through the efforts of many diverse individuals, hopefully leading to a better experience for all.

Navigation

Navigation through this wiki occurs primarily through two means:

1. Hyperlinks: Nearly all blue text is a hyperlink. Clicking on the link will take you to the relevant page.
2. Search Bar: If you're not certain which page you need you can use the Search Bar at the very top of every wiki page. Entering a search term and then pressing <ENTER> or clicking on the magnifying glass will execute a search and provide you with a list of relevant pages.

Experiences

This wiki, perhaps in conjunction with a guide, will take you, an explorer, on a journey through a series of experiences in Computer Science. Each experience is contained on a wiki page where the page name begins with Wnnnn, for example, W1001 The Wiki. Entering the page number (W1001) in the search bar will be sufficient to take you to the desired page.

Experiences will generally begin with some background information and then it'll be time for you to get your own feet wet by digging in deeper. There are a few icons that will be helpful to understand:

Key Concepts

This box will describe a summary of important concepts which should be thoroughly understood by the completion of the experience.

Helpful Hint

This box will describe a helpful hint that you'll likely find useful.

Observe

Observe, Ponder, and Journal: : Section 1

This box will contain items which should be closely observed and pondered. Most such boxes will be labeled with a section number and one or more questions. For example:

1. Why do you think section numbers begin with the number one?

You're expected to document your answers to these questions in your Digital Journal. Each entry must be consistently labeled with the section number, a period, and then the question number. For example, when answering this question, the identifier would be 1.1

You'll learn more about Digital Journals in W1005 Digital Journal. Until then, you'll probably find it helpful to document your answers on paper or digitally using your favorite text editor.

Exercises

This box will contain a list of exercises that you need to perform in order to best master the subject matter of the experience. There are several different types of exercises. Some will be included on the page (perhaps in the form of a quiz) but more often exercises will require you to perform some puzzle solving or other work on the server.

Caution

This box will contain information about items that are critical to understand where a failure to understand could result in undesired consequences.

Going Deeper

This box will contain supplementary material which is not essential to understand yet may be intriguing for those wishing to understand at a deeper level.

	Coming Soon
	This box will contain topics that will soon be added to the wiki.

Conventions

• In most cases, the case of characters matter. "begin" is different from "Begin" and "BEGIN". Be sure to use the correct case.
• Keys will appear within a keyboard key image. For example, if you are told to press RETURN the intent is for you to press the key labeled RETURN (or ENTER), not to type the characters R-E-T-U-R-N.
• Key combinations will appear as two adjacent keyboard keys, separated by a hyphen. For example, CONTROL-c means that you should press and hold the CONTROL key, then press the c key, and then release the CONTROL key.
• There are several different types of assessments and exercises. You'll notice that each experience is identified by the letter "W" followed by four digits, i.e. Wnnnn. Regardless of the type of exercise, the nnnn will always match that of the experience.
  • Experiences from the wiki that aren't part of the  Merlin Mission Manager  (you'll learn about this in experience W1008) will be labeled as Xnnnn
  • Excursions from the wiki that aren't part of the  Merlin Mission Manager  will be labeled as Cnnnn
  • Labs and assessments (quizzes and tests) that are part of  Merlin Mission Manager  will be labeled as Mnnnn
  • Reflections in the form of a journal (you'll learn about this in experience W1005) will be labeled as Jnnnn
  • Reflections in the form of an essay will be labeled as Ennnn