Hey, guys.
In this section, it will be the first time you will be creating a Capstone Project.
So before we get started, I want to quickly tell you what exactly are the capstone projects and why
they're so important in your journey of becoming a web developer?
As a professional web developer, the most important thing I want to know about you is what you have
done.
Many web developers, for example, in this case, Matt Farley, a professional web developer and designer,
on his personal website, you'll be able to see his recent work, and this shows off the projects that
he's worked on, the clients he's worked with,
and also it means that anybody who's looking to hire him will be able to see exactly what he's made
of.
This is what we are building towards. Now,
whenever I interview web developers or other programmers for any sort of job, one of the most important
thing I look for is their portfolio.
What have they built?
What does their code look like?
What are they able to do?
And this is a really important step in your evolution as a developer.
You need to be able to show people what you're capable of and what better way than to start building
a portfolio.
Previously, you've already come across GitHub and hopefully, you've already got an account on there, and this
is where we're going to be starting our portfolio
just like any other professional developer.
On your profile in GitHub, you will be able to pin and highlight some of the projects that you've built,
and this is where your portfolio is going to start to evolve.
Now another really neat thing about GitHub is you can see a developer's activity level, you can see
how often they've been uploading stuff to GitHub as a proxy for how often they're working and writing
code.
So this is another great way of telling how active a programmer is and how much they're practicing and
polishing their skills.
In the coming lessons, you're going to see an instruction for the Capstone project and the great thing
about these capstone projects is I've created them so that they are perfectly suited for your current
level.
I know exactly what you've learned because I've just taught it to you and the project specifications
reflect this, so it should be doable at your level.
Now that doesn't mean it's not hard.
There will be difficulties that you'll encounter and you will have things that you might want to look
up on the internet.
Maybe you'll need to look through the docs and you'll probably struggle at some point along the way,
that is the idea of the Capstone project.
But in addition, in the instructions you'll always see an example website that I've created to show
you what it is you're aiming for.
Now, the important thing here is you don't just straight up copy the example website because remember
this course is taken by millions of people across the entire web
and I've often seen people apply to jobs under my friends' startups or other situations where I've
seen in their portfolio projects that are clearly from a tutorial.
And I know that because they're one of my tutorials.
So keep this in mind when you're building your capstone project.
And the reason why these capstone projects can be added to your portfolio is because it's going to be
entirely your work.
The specifications are there as if you're a professional developer, getting the instructions from your
clients.
So ideally, everyone's work will be completely different.
And unlike the course projects where I provide solution code, where I provide walkthrough videos,
where we go through every part of the project in detail together, I give you the designs to create
it,
I show you exactly what it needs to look like, all the images and files that you require in order to
build it,
the capstone projects are a different concept, and the easiest way to imagine is you've now graduated
from Web Developer Bootcamp and you're now ready to take on a client.
Your client is going to give you a specification for what you need to create and you're going to create
it as a professional.
No copying of other people's code and no instructor to lean on.
And hopefully through these capstone projects you'll see your own personal evolution.
What you're able to build at Capstone one is going to be very different from Capstone Six and so on,
and this is a great way of getting used to working as a professional developer.
Now, if you don't ever want to get a job as a developer, then feel free to skip this module entirely
and continue learning.
It's only useful if you find it useful.
It's not for my benefit, but I do think that it's really important to get out of what's called tutorial
hell, where you are relying heavily on tutorials.
You need to be able to feel the struggle and to do things by yourself in order to evolve and get better
as a programmer and as a developer.
All right, enough said,
it's time to move on to the next lesson and take a look at the instructions for your first capstone
project.
I hope you enjoy it and be sure to share your good work in the Q&A once you're done.