Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Clean Coder Chapters 1 & 2 and Week 1

The Clean Coder, Chapters 1 & 2
After reading the first 2 chapters I felt like I had read my
own experiences over the past twenty something years. I wasn’t a programmer or
in anything to do with computers, but the more I read and learn about this field
the more I find that even though I was doing something different, a lot of the same
issues happen no matter where you are.
In the first chapter on professionalism he talks about how
it is easier to be a nonprofessional because they don’t have to take
responsibility for the job they do. That got me to thinking about the term. No
matter what job or jobs I have had I always tried to do them as a professional.
I think the term work ethic could be used to describe professionalism as well.
You get out what you put in. I felt like I had been in similar situations as I
read the chapter. He seemed to go through something everyone must go through at
some point in life. I enjoyed how he learned from his errors and passed wisdom
on. The lessons learned from releasing the product without properly testing and
it went south. This was all to save face and look good because it went out on time,
but then the backfire. Though you think you are saving time, in the end you
lose time and man hours when if it had of been done right the first time a lot
could be prevented.
I like his take on the do no harm function as well. We can’t
be perfect, but we must be responsible for our imperfections and should always
be trying to get our error rate approaching zero and expect QA to find nothing
wrong. If that is the thought process you should genuinely be surprised when
they do find a flaw. I have been in the situation where I half assed something
to get it done on time and was not surprised in the least when it failed.
Wasted time and hours when I should have just done it right the first time.
I really felt like his work ethic and knowing your field hit
the nail on the head as well. They gave me something to try and think about. I
like the time breakdown. It humbled me actually when he was talking about the
first 40 are for the employer and 20 aside for me. I had never thought of it
that way and it humbled me. He set up some very realistic ideas on how to
utilize time. As far as knowing the field, I feel like I have a lot to do. I
know I am just getting started, but I didn’t realize just how much there is to
just know for the basics. I picked up a copy of the gang of four design
patterns books to increase my learning on that end and plan on just plucking
away each day to increase my chops.
Overall I gained a great deal from chapter one and plan on
reading it again. I wish I had come across this sooner.
Chapter 2 and saying no brought back many memories as well.
I think a lot of people in general have issues with saying no and want to just
get along and cause no waves. I am one of those, well was. I do not like to say
no because it is uncomfortable for sure, but that was because of the way that I
said no. I usually offended someone because I didn’t think before I spoke. I
have changed. He makes some great points on how to and not to approach
situations. His role playing scenarios were ones I have been a part of myself
to some degree. I was one of those people that used to say I’ll try and had
never thought boss would think of that as a yes I can get it done on time. It
makes sense though because I’ll try is like beating around the bush.  Overall there were a lot of good points that
can be used no matter where or what job you are doing. I am sure that once I
get into the field that I will be practicing my version of saying no and this
book will come to mind.
Week 1 learning
I am still trying to process everything that I have gone
over this week and am still in the process of going over it. The first couple
weeks of the semester are the hardest for me. I try to make a schedule of my
time so I can manage everything. I am excited for this one though as it is my
last undergrad semester and a long time coming. I have been going through some
Angular 2 tutorials to get a grasp on how it works, and using the node package
manager and other tools. I think it is going to be a lot of fun to learn and
use and I hope to become proficient with it.
The Open MRS project is overwhelming to me so far, but that
is I guess because I am just getting into what it is all about. I tried the
demo and like the functionality and can’t wait to get my hands dirty. I think
it is great that so many folks are collaborating on this records system that
can help so many people around the globe. I am eager to get started in this
journey and hope that whatever we do this semester has an impact in the years
to come. I know I am going to have a lot of challenges, but I welcome them with
open arms.

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

Professionalism is not just for work but also life

I really liked the Reading in “The Clean Coder” by Robert C. Martin. In chapter one I enjoyed reading about how developing your career is not anyone elses job but your own. As a professional and of course computer science. We are expected to grow and learn daily, we may not know it all but many things we can have go wrong are within our control to prevent if we are properly thinking and are prepared. Much like as Seniors we have learned a important fact,…we are all clue less, even if we have ventured out and learned new tools and techniques we certainly have far to go to become true experts. Yet I think that was the most intriguing thing about Software development, is that you must constantly be evaluating your work and your knowledge. The second chapter brings up a very important topic that I got to see first hand and learn the needed skill of knowing when to say no. This is a respected and reserved response in my company but it should be used when you know it is appropriate. I have had the pleasure of working with understanding individuals who are willing to work with you, yet sometimes you need to push back to achieve the common goal.

From the blog CSWSU – Triforce Code| Exploring and Learning by CSWSU – Triforce Code| Exploring and Learning and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Clean Coder. Chapter 1 & 2

In this weeks reading of The clean Coder, we read Chapter 1&2 which talks about the importance of professionalism and saying “no”. In the software development field ,some important aspects of professionalism are taking responsibility, being knowledgeable about your field, and having work ethic.

So what does it mean to be a professional?. A professional knows their job is as important as it gets and all their actions can lead to certain consequences. As developers, we must be responsible for staying up to date on our profession and continuously keep growing. No matter how tough and frustrating our job gets we are responsible for getting the job done right. The book makes a good point by mentioning that “The human body is too complex to understand in it’s entirety, but doctors still take an oath to do no harm. If they don’t take themselves off a hook like that, how can we? Doctors knows the consequences of mistakes and fights to prevent them. If we are truly considered professionals,  we can do the same.

Moreover, as a professional, we are required to be extremely knowledgeable about you field. Customers will expect you to know what you are doing and do your job flawlessly. We are held accountable for the quality of our work. As professionals, we have no rooms for mistakes; we must minimize our flaws as our careers advances. The way developers can ensure that there mistakes stays at a minimum is to test their work over and over again. Quality assurance is a huge part of professionalism.

I never knew the importance of saying “no” in the software development field, until i read about it in the book. During our career there  will be times where we are pressured into doing things that are just not feasible. It is up to a professional to stand their ground and face confrontation in order to make the right decisions. It is important to be realistic on the difficulty of our job and to be upfront about it no matter how tough it may be. It is better to let your boss know that a project is not ready than to delivering the project knowing that it’s not fully complete or tested. This will save a lot of money and avoid having pissed of clients in your hands. As the book mentions, it is foolish to deliver function at the expense of structure.

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

Review of “The Clean Coder” Chapter 1 & 2

In addition to my weekly post reviewing what i have learned as well as my progress on the AMPATH project, i will also be writing a weekly blog discussing chapters in “The Clean Coder” by Robert C. Martin.

This week i have read the first two chapters of the book, and i almost found it hard to put down. The author has a good way of connecting with the reader and making him invested in what he is saying.

The first two chapters basically begin with the author attempting to define professionalism in the best war possible. This is a large task and takes a deal of time to fully understand what a professional is and how he operates. There was one point in the first chapter where he discussed writing and releasing code that had cost the company 10,000 dollars and he went on to say that a professional would reimburse the company for that loss where as a non professional would shrug it off and just say that “eh it happens”. This hit me pretty hard, and i completely agree. If you are not invested in the code that you write then why even write it at all? Are you ding it just to get a paycheck at the end of the week? If that is the case then the code that you are writing is most likely not that good at all. He goes on further in the chapter to discuss continuing your education and even compares our profession to that of a surgeon and uses the Hippocratic oath as an example. Again this is something that i found very powerful, as people do not understand the effect bad code can have in certain situations, imagine a bug in a self-driving car. He then states that you should spend at least 20 hours outside of work to be furthering your education and working on personal development. I believe this to be the key to success especially in our industry, things are moving so quickly that if you don’t stay up to date on languages and frameworks you yourself will become outdated and find yourself out of a job.

The second chapter discusses things that i am currently not as familiar with because it involves working in teams on large projects.However it was very interesting and insightful to read. I can completely understand the importance of staying true to your own objectives and maintaining composure in confrontations. However i  think the author may have understated how difficult that that may actually be for some of us.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Computer Science Journal by jtassone93 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Week 1 Reflection

I will be writing a weekly reflection for my software development capstone in order to discuss what i have learned that week as well as my current progress and thoughts regarding the ongoing capstone project.

This is the first post in a series now that the first week of the semester is over. Although we did not do a great deal in the first week i have actually learned quite a bit. We have gone over the SCRUM development process as well as begun to implement it on a hands on project. This was an interesting experience because i have not done anything quite like this before. We have assembled teams of six people to work on parts of an open source project. Going forward it should be an interesting and unique learning experience.

I have also never contributed to an open source project before so i am very excited to begin learning about the project and open source as a whole. Working in actual development teams and submitting our code for professionals to review should be interesting. Hopefully we are able to get some of our code actually implemented into the project but who knows. The project we will be working on is called OpenMRS, and specifically a portion of that project known as AMPATH, which is located in Kenya.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Computer Science Journal by jtassone93 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Reflections Week 1

For the first week of the Software Development Capstone we mostly focused on setting up teams that we will be working with for the rest of the semester. This was done by having one person voted in as a Team Recruiter and them being able to pick who was going to be with them. After everyone had a team of six, joined our class on Slack and then created a channel for our own team. Luckily, I have had experience with slack before and know how to use it so I didn’t have to do much reading about it.

We then moved onto learning about OpenMRS and AMPATH which is the specific project we will be working with. OpenMRS is a client-server application that allows people, with no previous programming knowledge, to build a medical records system. This is so that these systems can be easily built in developing countries. AMPATH is one of these medical record systems that is based out of Kenya and helps with numerous medical needs from disease to abuse.

On the software development side of things, OpenMRS uses three languages for their application. For the OpenMRS Platform they mainly use Spring MVC and Java EE, and for their ORM they use Hibernate. With most of their front end stuff they use Angular 2. For our group project, we were told that we’d mostly be working with Angular 2 so I started reading up on some basics about it and just going through simple tutorials. (For right now I’m just reading through this tutorial, but I noticed more on other blogs and hope to get to them this weekend.) I’ve done some small things with Javascript so I’m looking forward to learning how to work with Angular 2 in this up coming project!

If anyone else is interested in learning about OpenMRS or AMPATH, here are links to their sites:
OpenMRS Main Site
AMPATH Main Site
OpenMRS Developer’s Guide

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

The Clean Coder, Chapters 1 & 2 Week 1 (1/24/17)

In the first chapter of The Clean Coder, the author makes the message clear of what the coder is aiming to achieve and how it may not be the right goal to meet. The first chapter talks about professionalism where the coder wants to be recognized as a professional but may be unaware of the expectations people put on that role. Mainly focusing on taking responsibility that the manager would have done, the author gives examples including  running by code to the QA testers with little or not bugs to maintaining the structure of the code.

This chapter was interesting to me as I never thought to see myself as a professional coder and the higher responsibilities will catch me off guard as I don’t think i will be qualified for it. I wonder if the team will want me to revise their coding approach, they might look at me as a supervisor even though I have no experience with doing so.

In the second chapter of The Clean Coder, the author explaining the importance of saying no. Sometimes tasks take longer to accomplish or may not be possible to do with the given resources, however the higher-ups may not take that into consideration and impose closer deadlines and impossible requests. Developers have to be brave enough to say if something can not be done and give valid reasoning as well. Saying yes will only put more of a load on their shoulders, load that developers will regret if they did not think it through.

I can not elaborate enough on the moral of this chapter. Even after learning about this scenario from watching Office Space, sometimes a person can only take so much and saying no is the healthy choice in the name of sanity. At least take each request into thought instead of saying no right away so show that you care and are being fair, but if you can not do it in the end then no is the right yes. There is always a workaround.

 

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.

Reflection: Week 1

The first week classes basically revolved around an overview of the materials going to be covered throughout the entire semester. We spent mostly on team formation. Each team will be working on an OpenMRS project named AMPATH. Team members are connected via Slack where we all be sharing our Scrum and other project related resources every week as we move along. We also read an ebook “Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction”. The example some of we practiced on the CS348-Software Process Management class was really helpful. Knowing Scrum methodology for the first time provided a sense of progress and responsibility for the project as iterative cycles ends up with some output.

Looking forward to setup OpenMRS and to learn Angular 2 in the next upcoming week.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Software Dev Capstone by osworup007 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Clean Coder Chapters 1 & 2 and Week 1

The Clean Coder, Chapters 1 & 2
After reading the first 2 chapters I felt like I had read my
own experiences over the past twenty something years. I wasn’t a programmer or
in anything to do with computers, but the more I read and learn about this field
the more I find that even though I was doing something different, a lot of the same
issues happen no matter where you are.
In the first chapter on professionalism he talks about how
it is easier to be a nonprofessional because they don’t have to take
responsibility for the job they do. That got me to thinking about the term. No
matter what job or jobs I have had I always tried to do them as a professional.
I think the term work ethic could be used to describe professionalism as well.
You get out what you put in. I felt like I had been in similar situations as I
read the chapter. He seemed to go through something everyone must go through at
some point in life. I enjoyed how he learned from his errors and passed wisdom
on. The lessons learned from releasing the product without properly testing and
it went south. This was all to save face and look good because it went out on time,
but then the backfire. Though you think you are saving time, in the end you
lose time and man hours when if it had of been done right the first time a lot
could be prevented.
I like his take on the do no harm function as well. We can’t
be perfect, but we must be responsible for our imperfections and should always
be trying to get our error rate approaching zero and expect QA to find nothing
wrong. If that is the thought process you should genuinely be surprised when
they do find a flaw. I have been in the situation where I half assed something
to get it done on time and was not surprised in the least when it failed.
Wasted time and hours when I should have just done it right the first time.
I really felt like his work ethic and knowing your field hit
the nail on the head as well. They gave me something to try and think about. I
like the time breakdown. It humbled me actually when he was talking about the
first 40 are for the employer and 20 aside for me. I had never thought of it
that way and it humbled me. He set up some very realistic ideas on how to
utilize time. As far as knowing the field, I feel like I have a lot to do. I
know I am just getting started, but I didn’t realize just how much there is to
just know for the basics. I picked up a copy of the gang of four design
patterns books to increase my learning on that end and plan on just plucking
away each day to increase my chops.
Overall I gained a great deal from chapter one and plan on
reading it again. I wish I had come across this sooner.
Chapter 2 and saying no brought back many memories as well.
I think a lot of people in general have issues with saying no and want to just
get along and cause no waves. I am one of those, well was. I do not like to say
no because it is uncomfortable for sure, but that was because of the way that I
said no. I usually offended someone because I didn’t think before I spoke. I
have changed. He makes some great points on how to and not to approach
situations. His role playing scenarios were ones I have been a part of myself
to some degree. I was one of those people that used to say I’ll try and had
never thought boss would think of that as a yes I can get it done on time. It
makes sense though because I’ll try is like beating around the bush.  Overall there were a lot of good points that
can be used no matter where or what job you are doing. I am sure that once I
get into the field that I will be practicing my version of saying no and this
book will come to mind.
Week 1 learning
I am still trying to process everything that I have gone
over this week and am still in the process of going over it. The first couple
weeks of the semester are the hardest for me. I try to make a schedule of my
time so I can manage everything. I am excited for this one though as it is my
last undergrad semester and a long time coming. I have been going through some
Angular 2 tutorials to get a grasp on how it works, and using the node package
manager and other tools. I think it is going to be a lot of fun to learn and
use and I hope to become proficient with it.
The Open MRS project is overwhelming to me so far, but that
is I guess because I am just getting into what it is all about. I tried the
demo and like the functionality and can’t wait to get my hands dirty. I think
it is great that so many folks are collaborating on this records system that
can help so many people around the globe. I am eager to get started in this
journey and hope that whatever we do this semester has an impact in the years
to come. I know I am going to have a lot of challenges, but I welcome them with
open arms.

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

The Clean Coder Chapters 1 & 2 and Week 1

The Clean Coder, Chapters 1 & 2
After reading the first 2 chapters I felt like I had read my
own experiences over the past twenty something years. I wasn’t a programmer or
in anything to do with computers, but the more I read and learn about this field
the more I find that even though I was doing something different, a lot of the same
issues happen no matter where you are.
In the first chapter on professionalism he talks about how
it is easier to be a nonprofessional because they don’t have to take
responsibility for the job they do. That got me to thinking about the term. No
matter what job or jobs I have had I always tried to do them as a professional.
I think the term work ethic could be used to describe professionalism as well.
You get out what you put in. I felt like I had been in similar situations as I
read the chapter. He seemed to go through something everyone must go through at
some point in life. I enjoyed how he learned from his errors and passed wisdom
on. The lessons learned from releasing the product without properly testing and
it went south. This was all to save face and look good because it went out on time,
but then the backfire. Though you think you are saving time, in the end you
lose time and man hours when if it had of been done right the first time a lot
could be prevented.
I like his take on the do no harm function as well. We can’t
be perfect, but we must be responsible for our imperfections and should always
be trying to get our error rate approaching zero and expect QA to find nothing
wrong. If that is the thought process you should genuinely be surprised when
they do find a flaw. I have been in the situation where I half assed something
to get it done on time and was not surprised in the least when it failed.
Wasted time and hours when I should have just done it right the first time.
I really felt like his work ethic and knowing your field hit
the nail on the head as well. They gave me something to try and think about. I
like the time breakdown. It humbled me actually when he was talking about the
first 40 are for the employer and 20 aside for me. I had never thought of it
that way and it humbled me. He set up some very realistic ideas on how to
utilize time. As far as knowing the field, I feel like I have a lot to do. I
know I am just getting started, but I didn’t realize just how much there is to
just know for the basics. I picked up a copy of the gang of four design
patterns books to increase my learning on that end and plan on just plucking
away each day to increase my chops.
Overall I gained a great deal from chapter one and plan on
reading it again. I wish I had come across this sooner.
Chapter 2 and saying no brought back many memories as well.
I think a lot of people in general have issues with saying no and want to just
get along and cause no waves. I am one of those, well was. I do not like to say
no because it is uncomfortable for sure, but that was because of the way that I
said no. I usually offended someone because I didn’t think before I spoke. I
have changed. He makes some great points on how to and not to approach
situations. His role playing scenarios were ones I have been a part of myself
to some degree. I was one of those people that used to say I’ll try and had
never thought boss would think of that as a yes I can get it done on time. It
makes sense though because I’ll try is like beating around the bush.  Overall there were a lot of good points that
can be used no matter where or what job you are doing. I am sure that once I
get into the field that I will be practicing my version of saying no and this
book will come to mind.
Week 1 learning
I am still trying to process everything that I have gone
over this week and am still in the process of going over it. The first couple
weeks of the semester are the hardest for me. I try to make a schedule of my
time so I can manage everything. I am excited for this one though as it is my
last undergrad semester and a long time coming. I have been going through some
Angular 2 tutorials to get a grasp on how it works, and using the node package
manager and other tools. I think it is going to be a lot of fun to learn and
use and I hope to become proficient with it.
The Open MRS project is overwhelming to me so far, but that
is I guess because I am just getting into what it is all about. I tried the
demo and like the functionality and can’t wait to get my hands dirty. I think
it is great that so many folks are collaborating on this records system that
can help so many people around the globe. I am eager to get started in this
journey and hope that whatever we do this semester has an impact in the years
to come. I know I am going to have a lot of challenges, but I welcome them with
open arms.

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