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Apprenticeship Patterns Blog – Record What You Learn

For this week’s blog post, I read the section  “Record What You Learn” from chapter five of the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye. The section started with a quote by Atul Gawnde in which it states: “You should not also underestimate the power of writing itself….You can lose your larger sense of purpose. But writing lets you step back and think through a problem” This reminds me a lot of myself because I am usually the one that never writes anything down, Instead I will believe that I can remember it. However, later I forget it. As I get older, I realize that recording something is useful, for example, if we are doing a project sometimes it is a good idea to draw diagrams and analyze through writing which helps to organize and plan it out. The section mainly talked about the practice of keeping a diary or a journal that will be useful throughout your career. The author also mentioned avoiding falling into the trap of just writing down your lesson and forgetting them, which I have done several times.

Keeping a journal of what you learned and going back to read it regularly will help you review the materials and give you a vital resource to draw upon. I read in an article that Psychology research and learning experts suggest writing things down leads to better learning. When I think about it, it is quite true at least for me I learned better by writing the materials down. Another interesting insight I read on the section was “By reviewing your journal, you can switch your past and your present around to generate your future” This is such an amazing quote and I hope that from now on I can keep a journal and look back at the things I have recorded. This pattern changed the way I think, it has given me new insights and inspires me to start jotting down my thoughts. I hope Over time these entries help to write an article or even a book regarding the journey of my life.

From the blog Derin's CS Journey by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Breakable Toys

 We can all benefit from writing random “toy” programs to push ourselves to the limit by setting artificial limits. — Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming

If you can learn as much from failure as you can from success, you need a relatively private space to look for the loss. In balling acrobatics, a performer who tosses three balls will never progress if he has never tossed five. Those who spend hours picking dropped balls until their back hurts eventually get good at it. The same lesson applies to software, where software workers often need to step out of their comfort zone to try something they’re not good at it. It is by taking bold chances again and again that you improve your skills, that you learn and grow from failure after failure. Just as a three-ball-tossing performer does not throw five balls in a formal performance, software developers often make mistakes in new areas. Software developers also need a safe place to make mistakes. It’s terrible not to have such a safe place to make mistakes. The fear and unwillingness of software developers to make mistakes make them stuck in a rut, unable to learn from failure, and thus makes the entire software development industry staid and stagnant.

Other examples of the “crunchy toy” pattern include games like Tetris and Tic-Tac-Toe. One senior I know has a habit of using every new language he learns to create a game, blog software, and IRC client. The nature of the problem is to build a toy that contains learning something new and provides an opportunity to let you in a special environment to deepen the understanding of hand tools. The environment is not only safe because you are the only or most influential users, and, even to the most powerful commercial products, you still have room to serve you as a user’s needs better.

You still have to remember that they’re just toys, and that’s why they’re supposed to be fun. If they’re not interesting, then when the initial excitement is over, they’ll just become a dusty relic, and you’ll be able to focus your energy on what you enjoy building.

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

DD path graphs

Structural testing is based on the source code of the program under test, rather than the definition. This is known as white box testing, while functional testing is known as black-box testing.

Program diagram: For a program written in an imperative programming language, the program diagram is a directed graph with nodes representing statement fragments and edges representing control flow.

DD – path

DD path: Decision-to-decision path (Miller). Begin with the “exit” of the decision statement and end with the “path” of the next decision statement.

DD chain: A path of starting and ending nodes at different points in a directed graph.

Consisting of a node, the internality =0;

Consisting of a node, externality =0;

Consisting of a node, the inner degree > =2 or the outer degree > =2;

Consisting of a node, the degree inside =1 and the degree outside =1;

Length > =1 for maximum drill

DD – path graph

A DD-path graph is a labeled directed graph in which nodes represent the DD Path of a program graph and edges represent the control flow of the Path.

For a given program, many different program diagrams can be constructed, all of which can be reduced to a unique DD-path diagram.

It is possible to generate DD paths for programs up to 100 lines, and above that size, analysis tools are generally required.

The simplest control flow diagram is the DD path. DD can be thought of as belonging to the control flow diagram.

DD path definition:

Given a program written in an imperative language, its DD path graph is a directed graph, where nodes represent the DD paths of its program graph and edges represent the control flow between successive DD paths.

In fact, the DD path graph is a compressed graph in which 2-connected components are compressed into a single node corresponding to the 5DD path.

source：

Click to access 08-PathTestingCoverage.pdf

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Patterns Blog – A Different Road

For this week’s blog post, I read the section  “A Different Road ” from chapter three of the book Apprenticeship Patterns by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye. The section talked about how taking a different road could be a risky or life-changing event.  Despite this risk, I believe that one should be not afraid to do something different with your life. A change no matter whether they seem good or bad at the time will teach you something new or a new experience that can drive you to push forward. The author started the section by talking about explaining how saying goodbye to the craft can be risky, but  “Even if you leave the road permanently, the values and principles you have developed along the way will always be with you” I think this is very true, no matter the change, the principles you have acquired so far in the career will always be there for you.

Currently, I want to talk about the sad reality and risk one may face when one changes a craft. The author talked about how a person switched from an IT job to be a teacher and afterward it was hard for the person to get back to the industry because “most HR people in big companies didn’t like it.” Sadly, most software companies nowadays see the gaps in a person’s career, and you must justify within their value system why you left and why you are coming back now. Also, as technology is evolving daily, companies want individuals that are willing to learn quickly and adapt to the environment rapidly. The solution suggested in this section I found quite helpful, which was to Write down some of the other jobs you think you would enjoy doing, find people who are doing those jobs and ask them questions regarding them. This interaction will help an individual to decide if they are making the right decision to choose a different path. Reading this section made me think of what my life will be if I choose a different road, it is risky, but is it worth it. Sometimes you must risk It for a greater reward.

From the blog Derin's CS Journey by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Be the Worst

There is a saying in China: Better be the tail of a lion than a fox’s head! There is another saying: Better be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix.

 

Surround yourself with developers who are better than you. Find a more robust team where you can be the weakest member and have room to grow. In the beginning, you may not feel confident in your life, but the process of developing and learning in the workplace that makes you stronger is lovely. In this society, no one will care how beautiful and challenging your strategy is. The most important thing is the result. Have you grown and become stronger during this period of enduring learning?

Remember, the probability of being rejected or thought strange by a potential mentor is not high, and the potential payoff is enormous. Even if the person isn’t interested in taking you on as a full-time apprentice, asking her out to lunch can be a valuable investment of time and money, like why dinner with Warren Buffett was auctioned off at such a high price. An early-stage businessman, or an established businessman who has achieved success in a particular field, is all vying for this opportunity. Do they care about the meal? No, they need to learn something from talking to Buffett. Such as looking at the market, investment vision, and the future development trend of business. In computer learning, the principle is the same. By talking with the people above us or the successful people, we can get the information and direction beneficial to our future development. Opportunities are for those prepared, and the accumulation of experience and insight in life will make you soar when opportunities come.

Ask lots of questions.

Tasks such as maintaining build systems, product support, responding to maintenance requirements, bug fixes, code reviews, eliminating technical debt, creating project wikis, updating documentation, acting as a sounding board for other people’s ideas, and so on. Typically, you focus on the less risky edges of the system rather than the core, which often has many dependencies and a lot of complexity. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger look at apprenticeships in different industries and find that “in the workflow, the tasks of a novitiate are often placed at the end of a branch, rather than in the middle of a series of clips of work” (Situational Learning, p. 110). These fringe tasks benefit the team and you as an apprentice, as they are often skipped in school classes and fill in the gaps. The experience still helps when you become a skilled worker because many of your mentors understand how important it is to do the tedious work. After all, if no one cleans the floor, the team can’t do the glamorous work because it is Mired in a mess.

What’s the most grubby task your team has been putting off for months? It should be the one that everyone complains about, and nobody wants to fix. You solve it. Don’t hold your nose and force yourself to do it; See if you can solve the problem creatively in a way that exceeds people’s expectations and is fun for you. Many people feel that this is a job that is not worth their time. If you don’t do well, you will help the team take the blame. If you do well, the team will take the credit. But you grow as you solve what the team can’t do.

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The difference between Stubs and Mocks

A mock is an object that can set an expected value, which will verify that the desired action has occurred. The stub is the object that you pass to the code under test. You can set expectations on it to work in specific ways, but those expectations are never verified. The stub’s properties will automatically behave as standard properties, and you cannot set expectations on them.

If you want to verify the code’s behavior under test, a simulation with appropriate expectations is used and validated. If you’re going to pass only values that might need to work somehow but are not the focus of the test, you can use stubs.

Important note: Stubs will never cause a test to fail. 

I believe the most significant difference is that you have written the stub with predetermined behavior. Thus, you will have a class that implements the dependencies that you have disguised for testing purposes (most likely an abstract class or interface), and a class will handle the method only through the response that is set. They don’t do anything fancy, and you’ve already written stub code for them outside of testing.

Simulations are expectations that stubs must set during testing. The simulation is not set up in a predetermined way, so you have the code to perform the simulation in your tests. The mockery is determined at run time because the code that sets expectations must be run before they do anything.

The difference between stubs and stubs

Tests written with simulation usually follow a test pattern of initialize-> set expectations -> exercise -> verify. The pre-written stub will be followed by an initialize-> exercise-> verify.

Similarities between stubs and stubs

The purpose of both is to remove all dependencies from testing a class or function so that your tests are more focused and straightforward when trying to prove it.

The most crucial difference between Stubs and Mocks is their intention. Explain this in the WHY stub and WHY simulation below

Suppose I’m writing test code for the Mac Twitter client’s public timeline controller

Here is the sample code for the test：

twitter_api.stub(:public_timeline).and_return(public_timeline_array)

client_ui.should_receive(:insert_timeline_above).with(public_timeline_array)

controller.refresh_public_timeline

Stub: The network connection to the Twitter API is very slow, which makes my tests slow. We knew it would return the timeline, so we made a stub that simulated the HTTP Twitter API so that our test could sprint, even if I were offline.


Mock: We haven’t written any UI methods yet, and I’m not sure what we need to register for UI objects. We wanted to write test code to see how my controller would work with UI objects.

In short, there is a difference between Mock and Stub objects, and RhinoMocks recognize that they allow us to write tests that better illustrate their purpose. The mock object is used to define the expectation that, in this case, I want to call the method A () with such an argument. Record and verify this expectation with ridicule. On the other hand, Stubs have a different purpose: they do not record or validate expectations but rather allow us to “replace” the behavior and state of “fake” objects to take advantage of test scenarios.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html

View at Medium.com

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Long Road

 When working on an open-source project, get in the habit of downloading the latest version of the code (preferably from their source control system) so you can review its history and track future developments. Take a look at the structure of the codebase and think about why the code is organized the way it is. Take a look at the way developers organize their code modules to see if it makes sense, and compare it to the way they might have used it. Try to refactor the code to understand why its coders made the decisions they did, and think about what the code would look like if you were the one coding it. Not only will it give you a better understanding of the projects; Also make sure you can build those projects. If you’ve found a better way to do something, you’re ready to contribute code to the project. Inevitably, as you go through the code, you’ll come across decisions you completely disagree with. Ask yourself if the developers of the project might know something you don’t or vice versa. Consider the possibility that this is a legacy design that needs to be refactored; And consider whether making a toy implementation for the relevant feature would help clarify the issue.

You end up with a toolbox filled with all sorts of quirks that you’ve collected from other people’s code. This will hone your ability to solve small problems more quickly and quickly. You’ll be able to tackle problems that others think are impossible to solve because they don’t have access to your toolbox. Take a look at the code for the Git distributed source control system written by Linus Torvalds, or any code written by Daniel J. Bernstein (known as DJB). Programmers like Linus and DJB occasionally make use of data structures and algorithms that most of us have never even heard of. They’re not magicians — they’ve just spent their time building bigger and better toolboxes than most people. The great thing about open source is that you can look at their toolbox and make their tools your own. One of the problems in software development is the lack of teachers. But thanks to the proliferation of open-source projects on sites such as SourceForge. Net and GitHub, you can learn from relatively representative code examples from the world’s programmer community.

In ODS, Bill Gates says: “The most subtle test of programming ability is giving the programmer about 30 pages of code and seeing how quickly he can read through it and understand it.” He realized something very important. People who quickly learn directly from the source code will soon become better programmers because their teachers are the lines of code written by every programmer in the world. The best way to learn patterns, idioms, and best practices is to read the open-source. Look at how other people to code. It’s a great way to stay relevant, and it’s free. — Chris Wanstrath at Ruby 2008 [

Pick an open-source project with deep algorithms, such as Subversion, Git, or Mercurial source control system. Browse through the project’s source code and jot down any algorithms, data structures, and design ideas that seem novel to you. Then write a blog post describing the structure of the project and highlighting the new ideas you’ve learned. Can you find a situation in your daily work where the same idea can be applied?

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Transpiler

 Transpilers, or source-to-source compilers, are tools that read source code written in one programming language and generate equivalent code in another language with a similar level of abstraction. A good example of a translator is the TypeScript translator, which translates TypeScript code into JavaScript. The Babel compiler can also be used for ES6 JS code to ES5 JS code.

Compilers also translate code from one language to another, but the level of abstraction is very different between the two languages. For example, compile from .java to .class files.

ES6 and ES5

To understand the translator, you must first understand the difference between ES6 and ES5 JavaScript. ES6 (ECMAScript 6) is the specification for the next version of JavaScript. Some of its major enhancements include modules, class declarations, lexical block scopes, iterators and generators, a commitment to asynchronous programming, deconstructing patterns, and appropriate tail calls.

The features are great, but most browsers do not support the specification until now. As a result, any UI application specification written in ES6 will not work in most browsers. To run these applications, you must convert this ES6 source code to the supported JavaScript version ES5. ES5 is supported by almost all browsers and is by far the most stable version.

ES6 – Brings “types” to JavaScript. Make it closer to strongly typed languages such as Java and C#. So far, most browsers don’t support it. It must be converted to ES5 to execute in the browser.

ES5 – Over the years, we’ve been writing plain JavaScript.

Translation unit

A compiler is a program-like compiler that converts ES6 JavaScript code into ES5 JavaScript code to run in a browser. When the compiler sees an expression that uses the language functionality that needs to be translated, it generates a logically equivalent expression. The resulting expression can be very similar to or very different from the source expression.

What does a translator do?

ES6 code => ES5 code (even ES4, ES3)

Sources

https://scotch.io/tutorials/javascript-transpilers-what-they-are-why-we-need-them

https://devopedia.org/transpiler

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1 Retrospective

Links to evidence of activity on GitLab.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/new-sample-project/-/tree/main/Frontend

I created a sample frontend using vue.js and learned how to build up the environment and set up a sample project.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/new-sample-project/-/tree/main/Frontend

I learned how to create a climate for vue.js on Udemy and Youtube to set up my vue.js settings. I used my tutorials to build my first sample project.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/community/-/issues/58

I am working with Migena for the Small Frontend, which is going to test the login feature with keycloak. We will use vue.js to build the Frontend and the third-party system, keycloak to test it. We will see how a real example of securing our system with keycloak. Our goal is to build a simple frontend to test keycloak.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/community/-/issues/34

I will keep meeting with the other teams working on the Frontend to discuss the Frontend’s style, format, and other components.

Reflection on what worked well?

The reflection on what worked well is that we work together with the team members we have worked with before to complete the project plan. Because we have worked together in the same group before, we have a deeper understanding of our teammates and are more accustomed to each other’s habits. There will be a relaxed and happy working atmosphere in the group, and the chemistry between the groups will encourage each other and push the project forward.

Reflection on what didn’t work well?

The reflection on what did not work well is that we didn’t know much about the project initially and thought it was a big project. When faced with the unknown challenge, we were a little confused at first. As we got to know each other and started to move forward with the project, we found that labor division was not reasonable. Because in many issues, Frontend and backend are related. Being responsible for each task affects productivity. So we have overlapping project leaders working together to complete the job, which leads to increased efficiency. It was difficult or challenging to push the task forward, but we encouraged each other through the ZOOM meeting after class.

Reflection on what changes could be made to improve as a team?

As a team with cooperation experience, smooth communication, and tacit understanding among team members are the basis and key to improving our team’s cooperation level. We would discuss the project after class and give some constructive suggestions about each other’s tasks. Good communication makes our team have chemistry. Through communication and cooperation, we have a thorough understanding of the team members’ tasks. Each knew the other’s project progress would be conducive to the overall advancement of the project. When a team member encounters a bottleneck in a task, we will appropriately slow down the overall progress and communicate with him to buffer his time to complete and push forward the overall task progress together.

Reflection on what changes could be made to improve as an individual?

As an individual, I need to improve my understanding of the Frontend more quickly to help my team better connect Frontend and backend. I need to arrange my group tasks more reasonably to help promote the whole group project’s completion. Besides, I also need to make clear my work objectives, continue to follow up on the team’s project, and make my part and the whole develop simultaneously. 

From the blog haorusong by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 1 Retrospective

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/new-sample-project

This is our example repository that contains everything we worked on for Sprint 1.

Review Docker: Reviewed old projects and main commands for docker.

Create Sample Docker projects: Created a sample Docker Project, Did the getting started activities.

Repository for event project: The main repository for the event project.

Learn About RabbitMQ : Learned RabbitMQ components and Implemented them using Docker.

Review Scrum :  Reviewed the scrum guide and understand the process.

For the project, I am part of the reporting team. I mainly work on the event system software that sends and receives a message to other systems using the RabbitMQ messaging system interface. I also work with the database person and did make a docker example project and a cheat sheet of all the docker commands.

What worked well / did not work well

 The thing that worked well for our group is that we were good at organizing everything and everyone was responsible for certain tasks, and I noticed that some of the tasks overlap between us. For example, the backend person must work more closely with the database person. The first few days we were a little confused, but as everything came together our workflow improved tremendously, which helped to complete all the issues for sprint 1. One thing that did not work well is that we had few problems with GitLab, our template was not loading properly at the start so we could not assign proper labels to issues. Also, during meetings, we should have done the group tasks together instead of a person just doing the task.

What changes could be made to improve as a team?

For a project, communication is the key to success. I think that as a team we should be communicating more rather than doing our tasks during the meetings. For instance, if someone is struggling to figure something out, the other team members can help the person and give insights to lead the individual in the right direction. Also, for the next sprint when we are making cards we should be more specific about the descriptions and properly think about the issue and how we can achieve it and it is clear to the person what needs to be done.  

 What changes could be made to improve as an Individual.

As an Individual, the change that I can make is to plan properly for the next sprint. The first sprint I started of slow because I was not sure how you do something or if I am doing it the right way. A properly planned sprint will help me to go with a flow and have a balance rather than getting overwhelmed by doing all the tasks towards the end of the sprint. My communication with the team should get better as we move on to the next phase.

Overall, this was a great learning experience. I think the first sprint was a success and a starting point for our team to move forward with a vision to complete the task that is assigned for us. I’m looking forward to working with the other teams to combine everything and see our progress.

From the blog Derin's CS Journey by and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.