Guide to CS 61A [WIP]

UC Berkeley's CS 61A is one of the most widely known introductory Computer Science courses, but it's also one of the most challenging, especially for new programmers. When I took the class as a freshman, I realized that everyone came from a different programming background, meaning many people needed more guidance and a slower pace than the course could offer. To help make sure everyone was getting the help they needed, I helped out whoever asked while I took the course, and that became the primary motivation for this guide.

About This Guide

In a sort of circular manner, I'll save some space and simply link you to the about page on the website, which should give you a pretty good idea of what I hope to accomplish by creating this guide. That about page, however, was written before I decided to make this guide open source, so it may not reflect the intention of getting as many perspectives and examples and teaching methods as possible.

Viewing This Guide

The best way to view this guide would be via the hosted website, which formats and orders the content on here in an easy-to-read fashion. The second-best way to view this guide is to read it here, which you're welcome to do if that's what you prefer! Things will probably be out of order here though.

Contributing

This is probably the reason you're here in the first place. And I'm glad you are, because you're going to help make this guide that much better. Contributing is easy!

1. Fork this repo. The only thing here is content, so keeping your fork updated shouldn't be too incredibly complex.
2. Make your changes. Add some examples or clarifying content, write your own page, or create a whole new week's worth of material. How much you want to contribute is up to you!

• If you spotted a small issue, create an issue in this repo and I'll fix it. If it's a bigger issue that you want to fix, feel free to -- use your own judgment when differentiating small and bigger issues!

3. Submit a pull request -- give it a helpful title and describe your changes. This'll make it easier and quicker for me to look at what you contributed and merge your pull request.
4. Wait (not too long) until I merge, and your contribution(s) go(es) live.

For a more detailed process, including some guidelines, see CONTRIBUTING.

This project more or less just started, so expect a lot of kinks to be ironed out. If you have any pressing concerns, feel free to submit an issue, or contact me some other way. Looking forward to making this much more concrete and hopefully, with your help, writing an amazing guide for future students to benefit from!

License

This work is license under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. The goal is to create one central hub for students taking 61A to find guidance from past students. If you violate the terms of this license, you're violating the principle of ease of information and are instead promoting the fragmentation of resources, which will only detract from students' learning experience.