Category Archives: CS448

The Software Craftsman ( 5 & 6)

Chapter 5 of the Software Craftsman book was a very good read. It gives some very important advise on what it means to be a software professional ( not software slave ). The thing that I found really interesting was the fact that the author of the book used to work for a company that had him start work at 5:00am in the morning and end at 8:00pm at night. And sometimes he worked so late he had to sleep in his car! All for what? Nothing! Absolutely nothing, but being branded a bad software developer.

Sandro Mancuso ( the author) wanted to be seen as the hero who saved the project, the man who made the impossible happen and a great software developer. Instead, he got the opposite and being blamed for the failure of the software project.

The rest of the chapter gives some good examples of what it means to be a software professional. Being a software professional means telling the truth and being honest on what can and cannot be done. Being a software professional means knowing when to say no to a feature request from clients. Software professionals have ethics, and a code of conduct.

Chapter 6 of the book is about what make good software. The author talks about the many things that the software developer must do in order to develop good code. Most of the ideas that the author talks about is from, I think, the Clean Code book.  So there is nothing really new in this chapter.

Overall, the message that I got out of this week’s reading is that a software developer is a professional. The chapters elaborate on what it means to be a professional. And a software professional is not a slave.

From the blog CS448 – The blog about software by Sudarshan and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 4 Reflection

Another sprint down in the books and this was a pretty tough sprint. There was a major road block that was in the way with the progress of our issue. This road block was called spring break. During spring break, I did not work on our issue at all. Before our break, we were assigned an issue, but we were not able to fix it. Our team reached out to the AMPATH maintainers, but they did not reach back to us. Thus, we were then given a new issue. Since we were given a new issue a little before the end of the sprint, not much was done. However, a new sprint is coming and I’m excited to work with my team on getting this issue resolved.

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

The Software Craftsman Ch. 3 and Ch. 4

For this post I read chapters 3 and 4 out of Sandro Mancuso’s The Software Craftsman.  In these chapters Mancuso breaks down what he means by Software Craftsmanship.  First and foremost a Software Craftsman is a professional who is constantly learning new tools and techniques.  In chapter 3, “Software Craftsmanship,” Mancuso presents and explains the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto:

Not only working software,
but also well-crafted software

Not only responding to change,
but also steadily adding value

Not only individuals and interactions,
but also a community of professionals

Not only customer collaboration,
but also productive partnerships

The second piece of every part of the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto simply elaborates on the first piece.  This is very different from the Agile Manifesto which contains contrasting ideas.  In this way, the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto seems almost intuitive.  For example, take the first piece, “Not only working software, but also well-crafted software.”  The next logical step from working software is software that is well put together.  In TDD after you write a test, you write code that makes that test pass. Then you write another test, and more code to pass that test.  Refactor and repeat.  Using this technique you write not only working software, but as you progress, the software becomes well crafted.  So I guess I can understand someone feeling as though they need to lay out these guidelines, but as these techniques have developed over time, the aspects of the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto seem almost inevitable.

Chapter 4 is entitled “The Software Craftsmanship Attitude.”  This chapter is essentially a recap of The Clean Coder in its entirety.  Instead of going through all of the content of this chapter, I would like to refer you to my previous posts.  After reading this chapter, and without having read the rest of this book, I would think that simply reading this book would cover most of, if not all, of the pertinent information from Robert C. Martin’s The Clean Coder.  I think that the overlap is probably pretty substantial.

From the blog cs443 – TayNock's Blog by taynock and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Software Craftsman Ch. 1 and Ch. 2

Fitting that the last chapter in Robert C. Martin’s The Clean Coder was about craftsmanship, now we are reading The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride by Sandro Mancuso.  I’ve read the first couple of chapters of Mancuso’s book and I’m not sure if I like this book any more or any less than the previous one.  I suppose that is fortunate.

The first chapter was titled “Software Development in the Twenty-First Century” and this chapter is about as long as the title.  Chapter one was all of six pages long and served only as an introduction to the rest of the book.  Mancuso did discuss the idea of seniority in the field of software development and broached the topic of Agile, the topic of the next chapter.  There wasn’t really enough content to reflect on this particular chapter.

Agile!  I love it, I LOVE it.  I’ve read and heard so much about the Agile process in the past year, and aside from the fact that its the direction businesses are moving, it just makes sense.  I’m pretty sure I have blogged about Agile before, but if not, I’m happy to do it again.  Most importantly we need to include the Agile Manifesto:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others to do it. Through this work we have come to value:

  • Individuals and interactions over process and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

This is just a better way of handling projects.  Using an Agile framework, ie. Scrum, and keeping in line with the Agile Manifesto companies are able to produce software more quickly and with better quality.  Agile reduces errors, misunderstandings, and obstacles by introducing more communication.

From the blog cs443 – TayNock's Blog by taynock and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 4 Retrospective

Sprint 4 was, I think, more productive than the previous Sprints. We actually got the NGPOC-184 issue solved. And I am thinking of picking one more issue to work on. So after this semester, hopefully, we as a team would have solved three issues.

The problem I had throughout this and previous sprints is that we are moving at a snail’s pace. The reason for that is we are all new to Angular and some of us are not able to learn Angular fast enough or not able to put in more time. It is very fustrating that we are moving so slowly. One issue in 2 months? Wow!!

From the blog CS448 – The blog about software by Sudarshan and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 4: Reflections on Learning & Work Products

Sprint 4 of the semester got cut a little short because of spring break.  While I was in Cancun I can honestly say I was not too focused on the project.  Before the break, we were assigned our first issue, but none of us were able to reproduce the bug.  A few of my team members reached out to the AMPATH developers and we were able to get assigned a new issue.  We actually all had to take a step back and re-fork our whole project due to it being out of date.  When I did that, something got messed up because I currently cannot get the test server to go online.  I plan to get my personal issue resolved with the server within a few days.  Our new issue seems pretty simple and straight forward.  I look forward to working with my team to start fixing more and more actual issues with the system.  Hopefully this sprint will be much more productive because we will have a full sprint with no interruptions.

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.

The Software Craftsman: Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter 3 of The Software Craftsman started off by discussing what exactly software craftsmanship is.  It gave the definition of software craftsmanship from a view different points of views such as; wikipedia, the authors personal definition, and a shorter more clean cut definition.  The chapter talked about how it is all about being professional when developing software which is something we have already previously learned in this class.  An interesting thing that this chapter discussed that I haven’t seen too much in previous chapters of this book or even in the whole Clean Coder book, was the history.  It gave in-depth information of the software craftsmanship movement and all the history you could possibly know behind it.  It was interesting to me to learn about historical details on where exactly this idea of software craftsmanship stemmed from.  Finally, the chapter covered the software craftsmanship manifesto.  The manifesto consisted of 4 major points:

  1. Not only working software, but also well-crafted software.
  2. Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value.
  3. Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals.
  4. Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships.

My favorite of the four was, number 1, “Not only working software, but also well-crafted software”.  This a very important point that every software developer needs to be aware of.  Just because a program may work, doesn’t mean it is crafted the way it should be.

Chapter 4  was about the attitude that a software craftsman should always have.  The chapter went through and mainly gave tips on how to improve yourself as a software craftsman.  Some of the advice that I personally took a lot from is always keeping our self up to date, practicing and balancing your work and personal life.  The topics of keeping yourself up to date and practicing are two things that I have seen a lot throughout this course.  It is clear that these two things are extremely important to any professional, but especially one dealing with technology.  Technology is advancing everyday and it is each individuals responsibility to keep up with it throughout their career.  Work-life balance is something that nearly everyone has to deal with at some point.  It is crucial for me as a soon-to-be software developer to start practicing different techniques to find the best work-life balance that works for me.  This chapter mentions a technique called the Pomodoro Technique.  This technique basically says that you should separate your work into 25 minute intervals.  It is proven that working in small intervals can maximize your creativity.  I am willing to give this technique a shot, even though I am not too confident it will work well for me.  I tend to be able to focus for a long period of time when I get into a groove.  If I was forced to stop myself when 25 minutes is up, it may set me back.  However, it can’t hurt to try.  Who knows I may find out that this is perfect for me.

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.

The Software Craftsmanship (Week 8)

This blog post will revolve around chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 3 starts of with a more in depth explanation of what the title of the book means (The Software Craftsmanship). In the book, the author gave his take on what being a software craftsman is.

 Software craftsmanship is a long journey to mastery. It’s a mindset where software developers choose to be responsible for their own careers, constantly learning new tools and techniques and constantly bettering themselves. It is about putting responsibility, professionalism, pragmatism, and pride back into software development.

I like the part where the author had stated that a a software developer chooses to be responsible for their own careers. I believe that if you want to be a good developer, one should constantly be learning and keeping up with the trends and technologies.

Chapter 4 talks about what kind of attitude a software craftsman should have. One of the most important thing in this field is to be responsible. You as a developer must keep your self up to date with technology trends in order to stay relevant. The author then goes on to give us some tips on how we can keep up with the trends.

  • Reading books, blogs, technical websites
  • Keeping a blog to document and track progress

The last thing that the author talks about in this chapter is about time management. As we grow older, we find that time is not on our side. The author reminds us that there is always time to practice. We just have to limit our time with certain activities.

 

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

The Software Craftsman (Chapters 3 & 4)

Chapter 3 of the Software Craftsman book answers the question: what is a software craftsman? The book gives many definitions; the two that I like are:

  1. Software craftsmanship is a long journey to mastery. It’s a mindset where software developers choose to be responsible for their own careers, constantly learning new tools and techniques and constantly bettering themselves. It is about putting responsibility, professionalism, pragmatism, and pride back into software development.
  2. Software Craftsmanship is about professionalism in software development.

The rest of the chapter is about the history of software craftsmanship and the software craftsmanship manifesto. The manifesto is sort of like a guideline of what software craftsmen ought to do.

  1. Not only working software, but also well-crafted software.
  2. Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value.
  3. Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals.
  4. Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships.

Chapter 4 is about the attitude a software craftsman must have. Our careers are in our hands not in our employer’s hands. It is our duty to improve ourselves. I totally agree with this statement. I personally have access to O’Reily Safari Books and it a really good resource. There are many good video courses and live training courses. I signed up for the Design Patterns Boot Camp course that starts this Wednesday and I also watched Uncle Bob’s SOLID principles videos on his website. When I enter the professional world I plan to attend more live training courses.

From the blog CS448 – The blog about software by Sudarshan and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Software Craftsman: (Chapters 1 & 2)

A huge point that Chapter 1 of The Software Craftsman discusses is what “seniority” is in a company and how it’s measured incorrectly a lot of the time in the workplace.  The chapter states, “There is a huge difference between having 10 years experience, and having 1 year experience repeated 10 times”.  That quote stuck out to me and made me think how true that is.  Just because you have worked somewhere a long time doesn’t mean that you have more knowledge then the person sitting next to you who worked half the time you have at that company.  The other main point this chapter talked about is something that I actually think about all the time. It talked about how developers should be able to keep up with the modern ways of working.  As a developer you need to keep up with the modern tools and equipment.  If you’re doctor was using medicine from 1990, and not upgrading his practices, you would be concerned.  That is how you should think as a software developer!

Chapter 2 discusses what it means to be agile, and how to solve the problems that come along with that with software craftsmanship.  The chapter stresses how you NEED to have a good balance between process-oriented and technical-oriented disciplines and methodologies.  It also talks about how you need to be able to work with your team as a whole.  I agree with this chapter that although being agile can be beenificial, it can also cause a lot of problems.  This is where you need to take your craftsmanship and apply it to help fix those problems.  Becoming more agile in computer science is a “game changer” as the chapter stated.  I now see how being agile in the workplace is very important and can change a lot.  I wish to take this knowledge and hopefully become more agile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.