Your First Learn Lab

Problem Statement

Before we begin diving deep into code, it is important to make sure that we go over the proper steps involved in completing labs on Learn. In this lab (yep, this is a lab!), we will be introducing those steps.

Objectives

Introduce the concept of running tests on Learn
Pass the tests to confirm you are ready for future lessons

Labs Are Lessons with Tests

On Learn, labs are lessons with tests. The difficulty level of labs will vary, but they all follow the same core steps. To start any lab, if you are using the Learn IDE, you must first either click "Open IDE" (or, if you are using your own local set up, fork and clone this repository). This will make a personal copy of the lab for you to work on. Once you've opened up your development environment, follow the steps below:

In your terminal, type learn and press enter
Read the messages that appear in the terminal.
Make adjustments to your code based on the messages you've received
Run learn again to see if progress has been made
Repeat steps 2 through 3 until all tests pass (sometimes referred to as being green)
Once all tests pass, run learn submit to submit your code

Whether you are using the in-browser Learn IDE, the standalone Learn IDE or your own local set up, these core steps will always be the same for passing labs. Don't be alarmed if you don't understand everything that prints out in the terminal just yet. The main thing to look for is the breakdown of failed tests:

Your First Learn Lab
  contains a file called "my-new-file.txt" (FAILED -1)

Failures:

  1) Your First Learn Lab...

Each failed test will appear in order. It is recommended that you start from the first (the top most) test failure and work your way through until all tests are passing.

For the final step, when you run learn submit, the work you've completed is sent back, learn.co is notified, registers that you've sent in your work and marks that you have completed the lab.

Reinforce What We Have Learned About Labs

The best way to understand the workflow described above is to apply it! There is one test in this lab. In order to pass the test, follow the numbered steps above. The first time you run learn, the test will fail, but the resulting message will provide information about how to pass.

When you've passed the test, run learn submit.

Conclusion

That's it, you're done! Again, lab difficulty will vary greatly depending on the learning goals within them. Some will be more guided, as you are introduced to new concepts. In these, test messages may tell you exactly what you need to do. Some labs are built specifically to test your problem solving skills. The test messages in these labs may be more ambiguous, requiring you to try a variety of possible solutions.