Category Archives: Week 7

Sweep the Floor

The context of this pattern is that you are a new apprentice on a project. However, the problem is that you don’t know what your role is in this team. You don’t know how to contribute to the team and help them in any way necessary. The solution is to volunteer for simple, unglamorous, yet necessary tasks for the team. This way, you can earn team member’s trust, and you also get to show the team members how quality of work you can do. The tasks may be such as maintaining the build system, production support, responding to maintenance requests, bug fixing code review etc. The tasks can be anything, but it cannot have any high risks. Starting a core tasks and failing puts you into a bad side of a team, so it is better to start off with an easy tasks and actually finish it to have good relationship with everyone on the team. These short takes benefits the team, but it will also benefit your apprentice because such chores are often skipped in academic courses and by doing them you can fill in the gaps in your knowledge. After all, if no one sweeps the floor, then the glamorous work can’t be done because the team is hip-deep in dirt.

This pattern kind of reminded me of our group for the capstone project. When we first formed the group, I was assigned to the frontend part of the project. I was ready to do the first task from the GitLab issue board, but my main question was how can I convince the team that I can do this project together with the team and can actually make some contribution. In this computer science major, I feel as if I am always a step behind from everyone and have to add in extra effort to be on the same level as everyone else. So to show my skill, my first task was to connect two components and load one component only on click, which in my opinion is not an easy task but also not a hard task and I think I managed to do that, and the team seemed to love the way it turned out to be.

From the blog cs@worcester – Dream to Reality by tamusandesh99 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Pattern “Familiar Tools”

For this week’s blog post, I decided to pick a topic that I think is very important and is something that we should remind ourselves time and time again. The topic I wanted to go over this week is on the topic of familiar tools or using things that we are familiar or comfortable with. How the author defines familiar tools in this section is a familiar tool is something that we can use without needing to look at the documentation. We have seen it enough times to know the ins and outs of whatever we are using. In the beginning of the chapter, it talks about how when we use familiar tools, it gives us peace of mind because we can give clients rough estimates or timelines of when they can expect something to be done. It is also because of this peace of mind that the author says that it may increase productivity. While there are advantages to using familiar tools, the author also cautions us to be careful. Using familiar tools may make us feel too comfortable and cause us to lean back on these tools and use them to try to solve every problem. So, the important reminder that author gives us at the end of the section is that we need to remember there will come a time in which our familiar tools will become obsolete and that we should not be unmovable. When the time comes, we need to be ready to adjust and throw away our familiar tools.

I found this section to be interesting because a while back, I was having this conversation with my team. We were talking about how when were learning introduction to programming, we were taught that our default branch on GitLab is master and when GitLab made the change to their naming convention from master to main, it threw everyone in the group off. Reading this chapter made me realize that everything we are learning now is mostly relevant now and that in a couple years, everything we learn may just become an artifact of the past. The principles may stay the same but the naming or software we may be completely different. Reading this chapter also reminded me of something that my R professor once told me. She once said something along the lines of, “Right now, we may be standing on solid ground but in a year from now or even in 6 months, the floor may disappear from beneath us.” When she told me this, she was referring to how our libraries may quickly become obsolete and when the time comes we should not be resilient to change.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Just a Guy Passing By by Eric Nguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Unleash Your Enthusiasm

Back when I was a kid (actually until now), I have been really into playing video games. It could be the reason why I chose Computer Science in order to be able to create games, a popular reason just as many of my colleagues. I somehow was able to land a spot at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, a flagship in technology teaching and research activities in Vietnam, after the high school graduate exam.

By the start of the school year, I had nothing but excitement, my only experience was some rough foundations of Pascal taught in high school and I barely remember anything from it. On the other hand, my colleagues were students from the very top high schools with a program concentrating in what they desire, which were mostly computers and the others had extra programming courses outside the class. Besides, the program was designed for students who already had experience with programming since the syllabus of my programming introduction class is a C++ class consisting of both functional and OOP methods with two huge projects. As a result, I was totally “destroyed” in this intro class while my colleagues, having a hard time, but managed to get through it.

Since my excitement was demolished, I had a hard time thinking about my major choice. I did not have any problem doing the required calculus, linear algebra, physics classes but my computer introduction class was a disaster. I was not able to unleash my enthusiasm, I did not know what it was, what I did at that time was grinding myself painfully to be “better”. In my opinion, we tend to be afraid of discussing or expressing something we are not familiar with, and for my case, I cannot show my professor my problem because of it.

After a few years since then, I would say that the syllabus for that intro class was still overwhelming for new students. However, for students who already had their based knowledge before taking that “intro” class, it’s a good opportunity for them to review before going into the main courses. If only I knew how to inject my excitement into my work to ask my professor about my problem, my learning would have been much better, wouldn’t it?!

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

Craft over Art- blog 6

For this week, I read the pattern of Craft over Art. This pattern occurs when beauty takes precedence over utility. However, as a craftsman, you need to make your crafts become useful instead of beautiful.  One of the most important factors of being a craftsman is accepting that you are not an artist. Your job is not to create beautiful and fantastic things to satisfy your artistic creations. Your job is to create a craft which can serve the needs of others and meet the minimum standards of quality. The higher the quality, the more time it takes. Each level of quality always require the trade-off between beauty and utility. So, you have to know what to do with the customers’ requests; and you must be able to balance their desire on the products by telling them what to prioritize in a particular period of time. Moreover, as a craftsman, you need to ensure that you are always willing to deliver the best products to satisfy your customers’ needs. That willingness does not depend on your current feelings or inspiration because you are not an artist, you are “supposed to earn a living at your craft”.

In my opinion, I totally agree with the idea of this pattern, Craft over Art. I like this pattern because it is practical, it tells me what I have to do to create value as a craftsman, which is to make my crafts useful, not beautiful. If you are an artist, you have to create beautiful things for people to admire your creations; but if you are a software developer, who will admire your creations, but useless? When your code does not even work, how will people know the beauty of your creations.

Therefore, I always prefer a simple program, “fifty-line game that makes someone smile”, over a complex program, a million-line game but unplayable. I have also used this pattern when starting to learn something new. My real life example is that when I learned to write a game in python language, I chose the simplest game to imitate and learn from. That is because I know exactly what my goals are. I just want to understand all the basic steps to write a game. The simpler the game, the easier it is to learn. I chose to learn the basic but useful for my understanding instead of the complicated stuff but I learned nothing from it.

From the blog CS@Worcester – T's CSblog by tyahhhh and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

CS 448 Post 2

For my next post, I wanted to move on to the first problem in chapter 3, The Long Road. I liked this problem because it deals with a situation where you are stuck between wanting to continue learning more about computer science and improving your skill at it, and moving on to “the highest-paying job and the first promotion you can get your hands on”. It comes down to this because it can take many years to master your skills, and you may never fully master them because technology continues to advance and that there is so much to learn.

The quotes at the beginning of the problem, and the problem itself support the idea that improving yourself at and even mastering something will likely take your whole life. Apprenticeships, such as computer science in this case, are journeys that are based on long term growth, and improving yourself is meant to be the main purpose of what you do. I can see that specifically with computer science, trying to completely master it may never be possible because not only is there already a huge amount of technology in the world to learn and work with, advances are constantly being made. While this means that there will be plenty of jobs and responsibilities for computer scientists, there may also never be some kind of finish line in terms of mastering computer science and technology. However, the same could be said for other fields of learning because advances are also being made in those fields that may or may not be linked to technology, and we always have our and other people’s experiences to learn from. There is always more to learn from, and computer science is just one example of that.

One more thing I want to mention and that I liked is that it is reinforced multiple times going over this problem that the path of focusing on mastering skills over your whole life is not the only path. Other paths for computer scientists such as settling in on a job like tester or project manager, entering jobs early in your life, or even leaving the field and going into other fields are also valid. These paths are not the focus of this book, but there are not wrong paths to take either.

From the blog Jeffery Neal's Blog by jneal44 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Pattern: Confront Your Ignorance

Last week I took a look at the ‘Expose Your Ignorance’ apprenticeship pattern, and this week I will focus on the ‘Confront Your Ignorance’ pattern. This pattern is closely related to the last. Once you have become aware of the gaps in your knowledge, you will need a way to address those gaps. It may seem overwhelming to try to learn skills that you are expected to have in the first place, but this pattern provides insight on where to start. In the previous pattern, you are advised to write down a list of things that you don’t understand fully, and then you can begin confronting your ignorance. Start with one skill, tool, or technique at a time, and educate yourself on the topic. There are many different approaches in doing so, including reading documentation and FAQs, building ‘breakable toys,’ and consulting with ‘kindred spirits.’ Once you have reached a level where you can comfortably work with said skill or tool, you can decide whether to continue honing your skills, or move onto the next item on your list.

I like that they have separate chapters that focus on exposing and confronting your ignorance. While both topics are related, they are entirely different hurdles that need to be leaped over. The pattern also mentions the balance between exposing and confronting your ignorance. Confronting your ignorance without exposing involves  learning in private potentially due to fear of criticism. Doing this only encourages that mindset that failure is not an option. On the other hand, you can expose your ignorance without confronting it. This can involve not taking action against your ignorance, which is also detrimental in a team environment.

Like I said in last week’s blog post, it is always best to recognize what you are unfamiliar with and take action as soon as possible. This is especially true in a professional setting, where things need to be completed in a timely manner. Thinking back to my first two years at Worcester State, I don’t remember asking for help often, which was definitely detrimental to me. Now, I am more open to the idea of looking into topics that I don’t have a strong understanding of and reaching out to classmates for help.Moving forward, I would like to continue practicing applying these patterns. Especially now that I am working in a team, it is important to not overly rely on them or drag them down by confronting my ignorance all the time.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Null Pointer by vrotimmy and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Read Constantly

This Apprenticeship Pattern is about constantly reading books pertaining to the subject of computer science as to supplement your real-world hands-on experience and as to not stagnate your learning. By not only learning through on-the-job experience or personal project experience, and having a few different routes of learning, you enhance your overall knowledge of the subject. This way, you also avoid stagnating your knowledge, because if for your job you are repeating the same or many similar tasks, then you aren’t really learning anything, or are just learning very little. This is because when you do the same thing over and over, you don’t really have to think about it anymore, and a lot of it is just automatic for you.

By reading constantly, you are actively engaging your brain to focus on new material. The great thing about reading is that you can do it anywhere, and at any time. Anytime you have spare time in the day, it is easy to just read for a few minutes and learn something. Also, by not reading it for very long periods of time, you avoid losing focus on the material, and instead can focus on the material in shorter, more manageable bursts.

I really like this suggestion because I have a lot of trouble sitting down and reading something for long periods of time. With your phone, computer, tv, etc. there are many distractions that draw your attention away from whatever you’re trying to focus on. This can make actively trying to read very difficult, but by doing it in whatever free time you have, you can avoid the distractions and help focus on the reading. I much prefer reading, or anything that requires sustained attention, in short bursts rather than long marathons. In short bursts I can ensure that I keep my attention on topic, but the longer I do it the more my attention dwindles.

The only thing I disagreed with was the suggestion to only read books, and not blogs or other resources. While I do think that maybe being online and not having a physical book may increase distractions, I also think that there are many great educational resources online that are invaluable. In my opinion, the thought that some things must be learned from books is outdated and could maybe even hinder learning. Everyone learns in different ways, so by suggesting that everyone try to learn from books doesn’t make sense to me.  

From the blog CS@Worcester – Alex's Blog by anelson42 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Craftsmanship Log #4 – Breakable Toys

The most significant part of the learning process as a software developer is putting the knowledge that I have acquired over time into actual, practical use and create something tangible that is a good representation of what I have learned. While it is important to have a good grasp in the theoretical aspect of my craft, it will do me absolutely no good if I do not actually exercise the skills I have acquired, especially when I need to use them in a professional environment. However, it is not just the act of simply practicing any acquired skills that is important. What is also important is to know how to properly apply the skills in real situations. For example, simply knowing how to code in theory is simply not enough on its own, it is also important to experiment with the acquired skills as part of their learning process. In this case, the pattern of “Breakable Toys” is introduced.

When a developer chooses to utilize “breakable toys” as part of their learning process, it means that they are working on personal projects that, although they are detached enough from a professional environment so as to minimize the risk of failure, they have enough functionality so as to maintain the realism of working on an actual project that needs to be delivered. Essentially, a developer creates a functional project on which they can experiment on and use any potential mistakes that may occur along the way as valuable ways of reflecting on or enhancing their learning process. The developer gets to reap the benefits of hands-on experience with none of the risks of  that would come up if their inexperience were to result in failure while working in a professional space. However, it is important to note that “breakable toys” in programming does not mean that the practice that you put on is discarded immediately after a developer has a better understanding of the problem they practiced on. Rather, “breakable toys” that are broken should also be recorded with the same importance as spike solutions that work flawlessly.

This particular pattern is a favourite of mine as it combines the pattern of “Practice, Practice, Practice”, which I always enforce in my own working career ad-nauseum, as well as the pattern of “Record What You Learn” since even small projects that were made on a whim may still be valuable enough to return to later. However, a significant aspect of this post’s pattern that aligns with me is the focus that it puts on actual hands-on experience, which is more valuable to me than endlessly reading documentations that I may never utilize.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CompSci Log by sohoda and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Pattern: Expose Your Ignorance

The pattern I decided to read is titled “Expose Your Ignorance” from chapter 2 of Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye. This pattern starts with throwing out a hypothetical problem where the reader is working for an employer that is expecting the reader to deliver a product but the reader is unfamiliar with the required technologies. The solution to this problem is in giving an honest response and building a reputation on your ability to learn rather building a reputation on what you know. This pattern also mentions how asking questions is a great way to expose your ignorance because you show what you are learning to your teammates. The pattern ends by discussing how exposing your ignorance is a trait of walking the long road because it means you are open to learning unfamiliar technologies and new domains. Whereas, experts tend to narrow their scope of learning, practice, and projects by specializing in specific things.

There were two instantly helpful pieces of information I gathered from reading this pattern. The first useful piece of information was how as I work on becoming a software craftsman, it is more useful to be known for my ability to learn things instead of being known for the specific technologies I am already familiar with. This piece of advice immediately affects how I think and how I will speak about future projects.

The second thought-provoking piece I read was how becoming an expert is a by-product of the long road I am on. This absolutely blew my mind but also humbled me because I should have known this already since I use a similar perspective for exercising in the gym. My goal of living a long and healthy life means that as a result I will have strong muscles if I am regularly going to the gym. I think one of the reasons this was so striking to me is because I feel like I have such a long way to go before I feel confident enough to call myself an expert in something. Therefore, hearing that becoming an expert is a by-product of the long road showed me how long this long road really is for me.

Lastly, there isn’t anything significant in this pattern that I disagree with. It was an enjoyable pattern to read and one where I learned some valuable information.

From the blog Sensinci's Blog by Sensinci's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Malcolm Gladwell published a book about him analyzing how the practice has helped successful people succeed with the 10,000 hours rule. One of the sections in Apprenticeship Pattern Guide for Aspiring Software Craftsman ensures the similar point that practicing is an essential key in making a software engineer become better.
What I found interesting about this is the connection between some of the points in this section and Malcolm Gladwell’s in the “Outliers” are Malcolm shows that practicing was among the factors that led to the Beatle’s success and Bill Gates himself. These people had been able to manage practicing days and nights to the point that they were quite comfortable with the materials similar tools no matter what or where.
Taking the time to practice your craft without interruptions which means to the point where the mistakes are what we are comfortable with as it is mentioned in the Apprenticeship Pattern Guidance . I found it very interesting of how these two authors have the same perspective of spending more time practicing and confronting the problems. Ultimately at a critical time, we might run into those problems again, and being able to solve them would save us time and sources.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of lectures therefore sitting over a lecture in college is somewhat an achievement to me and I’m more like a hands-on person. Fortunately, that is one of the good ways to learn as a Software Engineer.As it was referred to in the book, a beginner should learn by doing rather than reading and sitting through lectures. Besides that, doing and repeating exercises helps us sharpen our skills, our minds, and our bodies to react to the disciplines. Another excellent point in this section that I found helpful is writing a lot and writing code often would help us develop neurons reactions in a good way.
Open to feedback is introduced in this section as well which I completely agree with. Being able to get feedback helps us determine whether we are on the right track. But part of me finds this odd because not everyone could get a good mentor and not everyone can give you good feedback. This also often is hard for people with small circle of relationships and connections. Relying on someone else feedback without knowing ours own issues is not a wise choice.
What I learned from this is finding an exercise and sticking with it until I could solve the problem on my own and then observing the solution that I have made over time as a programmer would have a measurable impact on my abilities to solve any problem later in my career.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Hung Nguyen by hpnguyen27 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.