Zack's CS Blog

ztram1

  • CS-448: Week 14

    Retreat into Competence

    This pattern is about how it is easy to get caught up in constantly learning new technologies due to the fast pace of software development, and how to manage the intense pace of learning. The pattern highlights the importance of taking a step back from the fast paced learning and to focus on honing existing skills. Trying to learn the latest tools, frameworks, and methodologies can be overwhelming. Along with the overwhelming feeling of trying to learn many skills at once, there is also a risk of never fully mastering the fundamentals. Therefore it is important to take a step back, and take time to practice fundamental skills.

    According to the pattern, being an apprentice is a rollercoaster ride. This is because there is the thrill using newly learned skills to deliver value to the customer, but there is also the terror of realizing how little is known compared to more experienced craftsman and experts. However both are normal and inevitable experiences.

    Although the pattern encourages developers to take a break from learning new skills, it also emphasizes how retreating back to competence is to not get stuck in the realm of competence. It is important to be intentional when retreating, as this pattern is only a short term fix. Spending too much time on this pattern can lead to halted learning. Being able to learn something new is a skill in itself; therefore, learning should be practiced unlike any other skill.

    In order to prevent the pattern being used, setting a time limit for honing new skills is useful. This is so one does not focus too much on retreating, and helps them stay in the habit of learning new skills. A strategy the pattern suggests is to pick a well understood topic that is self contained, and to reimplement it. This can help regain confidence to propel learning.

    Conclusion

    I found this pattern to be interesting as constantly learning new technologies can be tiring, so having a strategy to regain confidence is helpful for the future. I particularly enjoyed the analogy of a catapult to represent this pattern. The analogy being that the skill of learning new topics can be launched forward by taking a step back. The pattern has changed the way I view learning new skills, and maintaining old ones.

  • CS-443: Week 17

    Unit Testing

    Unit testing is a process in software testing where the smallest functional unit of code is tested. A common practice for unit tests is to first write the tests as code. Then the test code can be run automatically when changes are made. Doing this allows errors to be found, and isolated quickly if a test fails. Automating tests helps to ensure that efforts are focused on coding, rather than running tests.

    As stated previously, a unit test is a block of code that verifies the accuracy of the smaller blocks of the code such as a function. The unit test checks that the block of code runs as expected, determined by the developer’s logic. A block of code may have more than one unit test assigned to it, in order to cover the full behavior of the block of tested code.

    A block of code cannot be tested using a unit test because a unit test cannot use external data. Therefore the unit test needs to run in isolation. Because unit tests must run in isolation, this helps to improve the design of the code base to ensure that no function relies too heavily on other parts of the system. Doing this prevents code smells which can lead a rigid system due to insufficient modularization.

    Unit testing strategies

    There are strategies used when creating unit tests to ensure coverage of all test cases. Some of these strategies include error handling and numerous checks such as logic, boundary, and object oriented. Boundary checks and error handling are similar in the sense that they both check the behavior of the system based on inputs that are invalid/outside the expected input range. Object oriented checks ensure that the state of persisted objects are updated correctly. Lastly, logic checks ensures that the system performs as expected given a valid input.

    Benefits of unit testing

    A major benefit to unit testing is the increased efficiency when testing code and discovering bugs. Whenever the system code is changed, the same set of unit tests are run. If a test fails, it is easy to identify what caused the failure because tests are small and isolated. Therefore, unit tests help catch any bugs before the system reaches production. Another benefit to unit testing is unit tests act as another form of documentation. Unit tests act as documentation because developers can read the tests to see how to code should behave. Having accurate documentation is an important part of software, so that other developers know exactly what the expected behavior of the code is.

    Conclusion

    This article was chosen because I enjoyed that it explained when unit testing is less beneficial unlike other resources. This allowed me to understand when unit testing should, and should not be used. I enjoyed learning more about unit testing outside of class as it is such as integral part of software development. Therefore, I plan to implement unit testing in future projects to ensure system accuracy.

    Resources:

    https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/unit-testing/#:~:text=Unit%20testing%20is%20the%20process,test%20for%20each%20code%20unit.

  • CS-448: Sprint Retrospective

    Sprint 3 Retrospective

    What worked well

    The issues the team had made for this sprint were larger in scale, but broken into smaller issues. This was done mainly to have enough issues for everyone to work on. However we found that working together during the scheduled class periods led to greater success rather than working on the issues individually. The team utilized mob programming in order to complete many of the issues for sprint 3. We preferred this approach because some of the issues were dependent on other issues being completed first. Therefore each member would have to wait until the previous issue was completed to work on their issue. Because most of the team members had little experience with the topics related to the issues we worked on, mob programming was also beneficial in allowing us to problem solve together.

    What didn’t work well

    One thing that did not work well was how the team managed our time during this sprint. By the end of the sprint, the team had completed most of the issues in weight, but failed to complete all issues. The team could have communicated better to ensure we had completed all the issues before the sprint review. Although the team benefitted from mob programming, mob programming did not have to be as heavily relied on if our issues were better written. In the effort of making the issues small and concise, we may have went to far when breaking down issues. Because this was the team’s third sprint working together, we have had enough time to get used to how each other work, the workflow, and GitLab itself. Therefore for this sprint, there was more that worked well than what did not work well.

    Changes to make as an individual

    A change that could be made as an individual is to encourage others to voice their opinions on what they think should be done. As stated above, the team completed issues through mob programming which led to multiple in person meetings and discussions. During some meetings, when we would get stuck and unsure what to do, I noticed I would list ideas of what I thought the team should do. Rather than always voicing my opinion, I would make the change of asking the other team members what they thought was the best plan to solve the current issue. This change would help everyone feel that they are included in the discussion and voicing their opinion is encouraged.

    Changes to make as a team

    As a team, a change that could be made is having better time management and keeping better track of important dates. As mentioned previously, the team failed to complete all issues from this sprint. This was partly due to the team thinking we had another in person meeting to continue working on our issues. This could have been avoided if we had been more on track with due dates. There were times where a team member did not communicate well resulting in missed meetings and confusion. A change the team could have made is to work with each other so that everyone stays on task and does what is necessary to forward the team’s progress.

    GitLab Activity

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started