Chapter 11 was a good follow-up chapter to chapter 10’s interviewing software craftsmen. After reading this chapter, i gained a better understanding of what type of company I would want to work for. The books makes an excellent point by stating that interviewers should test candidates according to the things they value and to what is important to the projects instead of asking close-ended questions that anyone can answer by googling the question. Although I haven’t been through a huge amount of interviews, I can tell that most companies care about the “technical skills” rather than the passion of a developer. I don’t know about you but I rather be a developer that doesn’t know much but is passionate and willing to learn, than a technically-knowledgeable developer who does not care much for improving his skill set.

Also, here’s the summary to the idea and basic solution of low morale. Bored developers become lazy. Lazy developers become unmotivated developers. Unmotivated developers start to not care about their jobs. When developers don’t care for their jobs, the company makes no progress. When the company makes no progress, employees feel as though they are not developing and are not making a difference. When employees feel this way, their morale dangerously drops very low. So, basically if you want to stop this vicious cycle, don’t become one of those developers who becomes “bored”. How do you do that? Invest in yourself, constantly sharpen your skills, and be a software craftsman. That way, you will always be learning new ideas and talents; there’s no way you could get bored from that!

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.

Chapters 9 and 10 were especially interesting because it talks in depth about recruitment and interviews; and what better time to learn about those concepts than a senior graduating in 1 month! I found it so relatable when the author criticizes the job description of companies who are asking for qualities that are not even implemented at the workplace.

I would search for entry level software developer positions and one of the requirement for applying would be +2 years of career experience. Like, seriously?! I don’t understand how companies who are looking for entry level software developers are looking for candidates with +2 years of career experience. Correct me if I’m wrong but entry level does mean “introductory” or “basic” right?!

Chapters 9 and 10 encouraged me to not just follow the money, but rather, work for a company you feel passionate about, Work for some place where you feel you are being heard and can truly make a meaningful difference! There was a line in chapter 10 that completely left me mind-blown at how true it was. “During an interview, it is important to understand that we are not begging for a job. We are doing a business negotiation.” This made me realize that you, as a developer, have something to offer. You are not “asking” for a job, you are negotiating how much you believe your skill set can be worth to employers!

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.

Chapter 3 of this book really translate what software craftsmanship is. It gave us a number of definitions including one from Wikipedia. Each definition shows a different perspective and what stuck out to the most was looking at software craftsmanship on a personal level. The book defines this as

a mindset where software developers choose to be responsible for their own careers, constantly learning new tools and techniques and constantly bettering themselves.

I see this being the most constructive definition or how software craftsmanship should be defined.  If we have this mindset then everything else like team work and professionalism should fall right into place. This also extends into chapter 4 because its about attitude and how software developers should represent themselves. No matter how much we rely on the workforce to gain experience, we have to realize that were in charge of our own careers and our advancement within it.

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

Although chapter 7 was mostly review of concepts I already learned, I do think it’s important to at least restate the idea of the “boy scout rule” and the “broken windows theory”, which was mentioned in chapter 7 because it’s an important mentality to be aware of. The boy scout rule is to “always leave the campground cleaner than you found it” and the broken windows theory states that “the bigger the mess is, the bigger it will become”.

Something that I did find helpful in chapter 7 however was the idea that we should not follow practices just because someone said so. Like with everything else, we should take all agile practices with a grain of salt because each practice can be extremely efficient in some cases, but rationally useless in other cases so it is ultimately up to us as the developers to know when to use what practice.

Chapter 8 mentions that there are 3 main things that a craftsman should look for in each job; autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I think it is every developer’s goal to find a job that fits these three qualities, because if you did, then you would now be doing something you love to do, rather than doing something because it offers large paychecks.

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.

The first chapter of software craftsman talks about how different being a software engineer is today. Knowing how to code is not sufficient to be considered a craftsman, we need to have the knowledge to aid a company in other areas as well. I can see how this is important because in the workforce we have to prove ourselves to be an asset to the company we work for. It is not just about mastering our craft, it is also about showing that we are flexible enough to learn new things and adapt to changes .  Like the book explains having experience in one area is not always the best route. Someone with less experience in the field maybe more knowledgeable in more areas. Chapter 2 Talks about the agile transformation which embraces processes and tools such as Scum and other methods. My experience with scrum has only been in my classes.  But i can see how practicing scrum and other tools alike really contribute to the Agile Manifesto.

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

Coming back from spring break not much was done on my end regarding issue 184. However, our team have decided that each member should pick there own issue to solve. After I’ve updated the module from the team’s repository, i came across an issue and couldn’t connect to the server. Because of that, i spent some time trying reconnect to the server. I received help from Haider who was familiar with this problem.

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

During this sprint i spent most of my time navigating through the ng2 module to get a strong understanding of it. Our  team spent time solving  issue NGPOC-184 and unfortunately we did not finish on time for the sprint. For me personally, i need to get a better understanding of Angular 2 to actually contribute significantly. Since this is a senior level course, we are given a lot of freedom with the expectation that we would be responsible enough to learn, communicate, and produce meaningful results within our groups. However, that is not the outcome of our team as a whole. We are about halfway through the semester and it’s not to late to pick up some of the slack.

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

Nowadays every is all about being agile. I’m sure that if we were to look at a scale of how technology has grown within the last decades, the rate of growth is exponential. This is what makes agile so important; the ability to adapt and change with the nature of software projects. In order to effectively be agile, you need to master BOTH the methodologies and the craftsmanship. To me, this chapter was relatable because as of lately, I do feel as though I’ve only been doing one out of the two; which is the methodologies. I would say I have the Scrum methodology followed pretty religiously but yet there is barely any progress because I am missing the craftsmanship. I am not doing enough research and coding to help better deliver the software we are working on and after reading Chapter 2 I truly realize what I have been doing wrong all this time. Even the author said it, “improving the process without improving technical excellence is pointless”, and he’s absolutely right.

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.