Software technology is progressing day by day. As you can see there is a major shift in the dynamics of technology learning landscapes. A major chunk of the work is done online. For instance, online classes, eBooks, video calls, meetings, and much more. There are cases where you have to download or install some software and work thereafter. It can be time-consuming. Well, to ease down your baggage, Katacoda is here!
Let us begin by understanding the concept of Katacoda!
What is Katacoda?
Quoting the Katacoda website,
“Katacoda’s aim is to remove the barriers to new technologies and skills.”
Katacoda is a platform that is used to build live interactive demo and training environments. Therefore, in this current COVID-19 pandemic situation worldwide, it is becoming highly popular amongst the students, tech professionals, and many more. The catch here is that you do not require to install all the components associated with it.
In the case of the students, Katacoda helps to provide privacy to the students. How? Well, every student gets access to the new environment as well as isolation from one another. That further helps to explore the skills and the student can also question without any hesitation.
Therefore, you get a customized e-learning platform to perform best practices through the latest technologies and suggested workflows.
Moving forward, here is a brief about the working of Katacoda.
How Does Katacoda Work?
Take a look at the three instances as shown below. Each one of them shows how to create different scenarios in each case.
Docker Static Website Image
It is a three-step scenario that helps you to create a simple Docker image for a static application and implement the image with ‘nginx’ web server.
Kubernetes Single Node Cluster
This is a four-step scenario that helps you to start a single node Kubernetes cluster. It uses the minikube. So, install the deployment and launch Kubernetes.
Katacoda Create Scenario
To create this scenario, there are five steps that you need to follow. This will help you to create a scenario itself!
Let us now dive into the several benefits that Katacoda offers!
Advantages of Katacoda
Self-paced Learning
This integrated platform helps to make the users feel more confident with its instant access to every kind of learning material.
Sharing Knowledge Amongst the Team Members
Katacoda inhabits scenario creation tooling that helps the user to create new content whenever some additional learning material is needed. Now, you may wonder what the scenario is.
Well, Katacoda scenario is a method to learn a new concept interactively in a step-by-step fashion. Therefore, this makes this platform an incredible place to learn new technologies as well as teach them. You also get interactive terminals to try and execute the commands. There is no need to type anything, you can just click to copy, and then run the command in the respective terminal.
Training and Experimentation
It provides you with several interactive scenarios that can help you to understand real-world problems and understand the guiding steps to resolve them.
Learning Progress of Individuals and Teams
The ultimate aim of the platform is to construct a dedicated interactive technical platform for their audience. Therefore, they try to identify where the material is being used and how the users are learning to improve and embrace the learning opportunities.
Katacoda permits its users to understand and implement products and various scenarios without downloading them. Additionally, when we talk about complex environments, the interactive environments are customizable so that the requirements are fulfilled according to your applications. Such environments can be both simple or complex but provide you total flexibility to teach as per your comfort.
The users can run standard Linux commands as well as additional processes, for instance, Docker containers. They can also use the Internet to download and install various packages by using the following link:
curl httpbin.org/user-agent
Integrated Editor
This tool helps the users to create, update, configure, as well as explore some sample applications. All these factors help to make the user understand the technology that can be applied to their applications or situations.
Highly Embeddable
You can use or embed all the interactive environments into any site or document to maintain consistency in the look.
Now you may wonder how this incredible tool works for you! Take a look.
First of all, you need to create a Katacoda account. To do so, follow these steps:
- Go to the official website of Katacoda. Tap on the ‘Create’ button on the menu bar.
- It redirects to a page that asks for your username and name as shown in the below-given snapshot.
- Fill in the information and click on the ‘Create’ button that takes you to the next section.
- There you need to establish a connection of your Katacoda account with the Github account.
- For an automatic configuration click on the ‘Configure Github automatically’ button. Take a look at the given snapshot below:
- Now, you can resume installing Katacoda CLI.
- To install Katacoda CLI, use the below-given command:
npm install katacoda-cli --global
- After you execute this command it installs the below-given package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/katacoda-cli
- To check the successful installation of Katacoda, run this command: katacoda -v
Now let us learn how to create your first project with Katacoda!
- The first step is to make a clone of your Katacoda project.
- Now, use the cd command like this: cd katacoda
- To create the first Katacoda scenario, run the given command: katacoda scenarios:create
- After you execute this command, it redirects you to a menu where you have to add some details regarding your project.
- This creates a directory with whatever name that you specify.
- Now, the content of the directory consists of the following files: index.json, intro.md, step1.md, step2.md, finish.md
Here is a brief explanation of the meaning of each file.
- index.json: This file is the result of the details that you entered in the setup phase.
- intro.md: Whenever the users start the tutorial, this is the welcome screen.
- step1.md & step2.md: During the setup, you decide the number of steps for your tutorial. These files are created as a result of that.
- finish.md: Once the tutorial is over, this is the final screen.
When you are satisfied with all the changes that you have made, commit and push them to GitHub in the following manner:
git add . git commit -m "My first Katacoda scenario" git push origin main
And you’re done! Furthermore, to add the content to your scenarios, perform this simple step.
As you have created your first project, now is the time to add some content to it.
Edit your .md files and add the content in Markdown format.
There is another advantage. The Markdown is rendered on the left. Whereas, the users can execute commands on the right side, on the same screen. It offers you great ease while you are working. Take a look.
Now, for instance, you have mentioned commands using the following syntax:
```
docker info
```{{execute}}
The users can simply tap on the command and the execution takes place on the right. Here is a snapshot.
Conclusion
As you have witnessed, Katacoda is an incredible learning platform. You can create some great interactive courses or sessions for your audience. This platform further offers tons of impressive benefits that present you with ease and effectiveness in your work.
We hope that you must have gained a good understanding of the basics of Katacoda.
Stay in pace with the technology and try this impressive innovation.