Monthly Archives: September 2016

Understanding your code

In the blog written by Alex Naraghi on What I Didn’t Understand as a Junior Programmer, he states, “There is no excuse for not understanding the lines you have written, or you are debugging. There is no shortcut, even if it feels like there is.” It is much better to spend time mastering the entire system and understanding a project’s architecture. Spend the time to use good programming principles and design pattern. However, it’s interesting that what was warned in the article was what I did during the past summer.

I was tasked to develop prototypes for some basic mobile applications for the company. They wanted an application that can search their publications, and retrieve the info. I had some experience in Java and also Android Development, but let’s be frank, after not touch Android for a year, I only had a cursory understanding of what was going on. IDE changed, APIs deprecated, and with that a whole slew of new issue will pop up once coding starts. I was also tasked with learning Swift for IOS development, in which I had no experience in. They gave me some code some other intern wrote in the past, (which was written in Swift 1). Being an intern with not much to lose, of course I confidently said, “Yeah, I can do all of this.”

In the end, I pulled it off. 2 weeks were spent writing an Android application that can search, filter by categories, and use the microphone for speech to text search. The last one my boss was most impressed with, although it was basically a very few lines I read browsing stackoverflow. Swift was the same, 2 weeks of watching Youtube videos and browsing stack, I jury rigged an updated IOS app that allowed searching. My boss praised me, commenting that I gave an intern a month and he made me two apps. It didn’t matter the two apps were designed pretty terribly and running on janky code, but as my boss says as I cautiously brought this up, “hey it works.”

“Now, I believe that even if you fix a bug through fiddling around, it is more than likely you haven’t solved it.” The IOS app, I can only somewhat understand what I did and there were probably numerous issues with it. For that project, it was only a quick and dirty prototype. However, in the future, if I’m working on a huge code base, there is no way I can just fiddle my way around while not understanding the system without serious repercussion on future maintenance. The statement I hear often is, “as long as it works, nothing else matters”. A belief that I often read and now seen permeating through middle and upper level management.  Alex Naraghi’s post just reaffirms my belief that in the world of programming, that the statement couldn’t further be from the truth.

 

Understanding the code and fixing problems as a programmer:

http://blog.alexnaraghi.com/what-i-didnt-understand-as-a-junior-programmer

 

 

Further interesting articles I read this week:

Al-Jazeera stealing codes from a web development company:

https://www.scrollytelling.io/al-jazeera.html

Learning Angular2 is excruciating (and JavaScript in general):

https://hackernoon.com/why-learning-angular-2-was-excruciating-d50dc28acc8a#.nb7772a3b

Chrome setting marking all HTTP to be unsecured in the future:

https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-how-broken-todays-web-will-feel-in-chromes-secure-by-default-future/

Knowledge Debt:

http://amir.rachum.com/blog/2016/09/15/knowledge-debt/

 

From the blog CS@Worcester – Site Title by nealw5 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Week 1: “What To Do When There Isn’t Enough Time to Test?”

This article originally caught my eye because of the title, “What To Do When There Isn’t Enough Time to Test?“.  I have been a Software Engineer intern at a company called Innovative Defense Technologies for the past 3 Summers.  I started off my internship as a Freshman (incoming Sophomore) not knowing too much about programming, so yep, I was thrown right into testing.  I have learned through my experience as an intern that there is always something else that can be tested.  Code is constantly changing as the developers fix bugs, or add new features to the product.  As a tester in a company, it is your responsibility to be able to keep testing all of the old stuff, while also keeping up with the new.  I have become extremely familiar with the testing process, and trust me when I tell you .. there is NEVER enough time to test.

The main point of the article,written by STH author Swati S., is to give testers tips on what to do when they are running out of time, and how to prevent that from happening in the first place.  The first tip that stuck out to me was to never under-estimate how much time you need.  You always want to over-estimate to make sure you 100% give yourself enough time to test everything.  There is always the chance of you running into a problem that may take you longer then expected to deal with.  When I first started integration testing, my first Summer as an intern, I remember being very overwhelmed and feeling rushed because I under estimated how long it would take me.  Another tip that I liked, was to use a test management tool.  It is a lot easier to keep track of everything when you use something to help make life easier.  I thought the conclusion in this article was very interesting.  It states, “Finally, despite all the precautions and measures if you still find yourself crunched for time, ask help.  Most teams are willing to participate in a war room session to get things back on track.”  I can say that though personal experience this is very much true.  Although testing may not be the most fun thing in the world to many developers, most people are always willing to help when they know you are trying to get everything ready for the release!  Overall, this was a great article and I would recommend any new tester to take the time to read through it.

 

Links to some more blogs I’ve viewed this week:

  1. What Test Engineers do at Google
  2. From jUnit to Mutation-Testing
  3. When to Stop Testing
  4. How To Be A Productivity Junkie
  5. Google Testing Blog: Hackable Projects

From the blog CS@Worcester – Alex's Comp Sci Blog by alexsblog13 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Ryan. I am a senior in computer science at Worcester State University. This blog will be used to discuss various topics in the field of computer science which I find interesting.

From the blog CS@WSU – :(){ :|: & };: by rmurphy12blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

A review to practicing safe Linkedin

When I was 17, I walked into a CVS, a Walgreens, and a Wendy’s to try and kickstart my working career. At the time I didn’t care  of what job I wanted to get – I just wanted a job!

However, when I walked in to ask for an application, all three stores gave me the same response, “We don’t have anymore paper applications, you can fill one out online”. I went home later on that day, opened up my laptop, and applied to the three stores that I had visited. One thing that stood out was on one of the applications, they had ask me if I had a LinkedIn. Being oblivious of such a website, I dug deeper into that question, and went on LinkedIn myself where I had to educate myself on the importance of networking, new ways to job hunt, and how I can make myself presentable not only in person, but online as well.

Now, introducing LinkedIn, one of the worlds largest professional networking sites. If you are oblivious like 17 year old me, just think of Facebook, but in a more professional environment. I never thought about ever losing access to my LinkedIn, but Marc Halpert, Author of Safe Linkedin made me aware of such matters. After reading his article, he gave me a really good tip about how I can ask LinkedIn to send me an Archive of my account.linkedin-notifies-data-breach-alerts-400-million-members-to-stay-safe

Now you may ask, “Why would you want to do that ? ”

Here are a list of reasons

  • How many endorsements you have
  • Learn more about yourself
  • How many and what kind of ads you clicked on to see what you are interested in
  • How many posts you shared
  • Great for marketing

 

Remember, the more you know, the smarter you grow.

// Blog im reviewing about Safe Linkedin

/*

* Blogs I’ve Looked at this week

* SmartBearBlog

* Gojo Adzic

* Android Back Arrow Icon

* Roles and Boxes

* Reporting a Novel Approach

*/

From the blog CS@Worcester – My Blog by justcodeit94 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Do NOT Manually Test

With the increasing fast development of technology in today’s society, you can almost guarantee that 99% of people have some type of advanced device on them at all times. For those of you who are not included in that 99%, you may like doing things on your own without having to rely on technology to do so for you, which includes manual testing.

While manual testing is still active today, it is not very practical or time-efficient. Us as humans are imperfect which leads to the chance to make mistakes with manual testing, not to mention the amount of hours it will take depending on the scale of the program.

An obvious solution to this issue is to replace manual testing with automation testing. Not only will this save you the trouble and time of having to set up tests that require complex requirements and pre-conditions but it is also helpful in inputs of data that need multiple fields of information.

 

Other 5 Blogs Read:

1. http://www.testingtv.com/2016/09/21/from-junit-to-mutation-testing/
2. http://www.softwaretestingmagazine.com/knowledge/oblique-testing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SoftwareTestingMagazine+%28Software+Testing+Magazine%29
3. http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/profiles/blogs/why-manual-tests-are-error-prone-and-what-to-do-about-it
4. http://www.softwaretestingmagazine.com/news/blazemeter-acquire-by-ca-technologies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SoftwareTestingMagazine+%28Software+Testing+Magazine%29
5. http://www.testingtv.com/2016/08/30/code-quality-in-practice/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tan Trieu's Blog by tanminhtrieu and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Software is love, Software is life

 

Software is invading our lives whether you know it or not. I highly doubt you can go a day without using/interacting with some form of software, don’t believe me?

Sure, you might be able to fight the will to look at your phone for twenty-four hours, but can you avoid driving your car? Watching TV? Eating at a restaurant?

Vehicles have computers that are tuned for maximum efficiency, there are vehicles that can DRIVE THEMSELVES, TV’s are TV’s, and restaurants use software to keep the order system in track.

We can’t avoid it anymore, and it is too late to turn back.

Software is love, software is life.

 

9770

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From the blog CS@Worcester – Kyle Polewaczyk by kpolewaczyk and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Introduction Post

This blog is for Worcester State University CS-443 and will be about upcoming news regarding technology and developments in the Computer Science field.

From the blog CS WSU – Techni-Cat by clamberthutchinson and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

My First Blog Woohoo

Well as the title says this is my first attempt at blogging and I hope that I can share some great stuff that is of use to you. For now I will stick to a weekly blog on anything and everything Software Testing for class and see how that goes. I may venture into the unknown and blog on my other classes as there may be some nuggets of wisdom on Data Mining, Software Development, and anything CS related.

From the blog format c: /s by c-braley and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Jonathan Paiz. I am a student at Worcester State university and am studying to be a computer scientist.

On this site, i will be posting blogs about software testing, and what we are being taught in class.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Site Title by jonathanpaizblog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Bull-sh*t Anti-Viruses (9/23/16)

stupid

Software Seller: Hello, would you like any anti-virus software for your new computer?

Translation: Hello potential victim, can we get more money from you based on your *unawareness of technology?

Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Um, i don’t know. It’s a bit expensive.

Translation: There isn’t any.  They are innocent. 

Software Seller:  We highly recommend you get ant-virus software, or your computer *will* most likely get infected.

Translation: We really really REALLY want your money, worry about this because it will help persuade you to give us your money.

Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Oh ok, I’ll take it.

Translation: You know more than me sooo…

Software Seller:  Awesome.

Translation:  

image

 

*unawareness: a nicer way to say stupid

 

In the common world, if there is a villain there is a hero just for the sake of balancing.. this world isn’t common. Nowadays, if there is a villain there is another villain disguised as a hero. That other villain is your average everyday anti-virus.

windows_7_compatible_antivirus_software

Take a good look at the picture above. Each one of those is a program in existence that does not need to exist, if it does its solely because of human error.

People feel comfortable seeing a big huge screen pop up whenever you are on your computer or even when you boot it up everyday where there is a big green check mark saying you are secured. But are you?

If you feel comfortable about the fact that the majority of your computer’s power being taken just to scan every file you click on or every program you want open for infectious data that doesn’t even need to be smart enough to sneak through your viruses, then there is a problem.

If you are willingly paying per year for an anti-virus that usually sees threats as temporary cookies that are harmless or for an anti-virus that doesn’t do anything when you know for sure you are infected, you’re not doing something right.

If people want to know why viruses appear on laptops, its simple! It’s because they let it happen!

As of today, computers with Windows 10 and Mac computers do not get viruses out of the blue. The reason why is short and sweet- they do whatever they can to make sure you don’t let it through.

People download stuff. This is how viruses come up. No, it doesn’t appear out of the blue. People torrent illegal content, or they think a fishy site is legit. If they see free they go for it, or if a prompt pops up they click allow to have the program download. The human brain is the best anti-virus you will ever have.

You are the one controlling what goes through and doesn’t and the so called anti-viruses you buy for the store or google to get for free do not operate for that because you gave these viruses permission to access your computer.

For windows 7/8/ and 10, they have a built in security system that does not take a lot of power, don’t need to scan regularly, doesn’t make your computer slow and its called Windows Defender. You don’t need internet for it unless you want to update it, but its already there! If you get an anti-virus it wont activate since the computer senses you have security software. Defender is pretty much common sense for your brain, that is if the prompts and warnings windows give you doesn’t alert your attention you are about to infect your laptop.

For mac, by default 3rd party applications are not allowed to be downloaded, for your safety. On top of that, every-time you need to download something it will ask for your user credentials and also give you pop ups to re-think your choice if need be.

As mentioned previously, the best anti-viruses in the world is your brain. Your common senses knows all. Only you can prevent wildfires, only you can prevent infections on your electrical, button-pushing, folding sandwich box.

 

 

From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.