Category Archives: Week6

Reflect As You Work

This week I like to talk about this pattern “Reflect As You Work”, so far this pattern is the best in my opinion, this pattern talks about the need to evaluate the work on regular bases, because with time and the lode of work for people who have competent speart, they will get promoted in … Continue reading Reflect As You Work

From the blog CS@Worcester – Shams's Bits and Bytes by Shams Al Farees and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

A Big Fish in a Small Pond

The pattern I chose for this week’s blog post is falls along of “Be the worst”. Now it doesn’t quite literally mean become the worst at what you are doing specially in the software field but rather surround yourself with better or stronger developers. From this you can be the worst or weakest member of the group and only have room to grow. If you settle for being mediocre or unaware of others strengths you will not learn or grow. The example they use is becoming a big fish in a small pond, it is critical for the big fish to be aware of other ponds within the vast global network of said ponds and realize that there are even bigger fish than that of your little pond. Going back to surrounding yourself with a team of better individuals you will then only grow due to you not wanting to be the bottom or smaller fish. From this you will work harder than you would normally if you settled for a buck average understanding. You will learn new ways to tackle obstacles in front of you almost mimicking the stronger developers’ habits until you reach their level. The others will also help you in the long run, preventing you from making mistakes how to recover and more. Some downsides of this is of course there is a risk you could drag the team down and a good team will not appreciate a free boater. Another downside is that you could end up feeling bad about yourself and your own skill levels as you being the worst in the group. This is after a sink or swim strategy so sinking will of course feel like drowning. In short being the worst pattern will allow you to increase your learning and growth levels to rival that of the stronger members of your team. I find this pattern to be very interesting because not often do you hear “go be the worst in the group” or something along the lines due to the potential of you perhaps causing a big problem for it. But it makes sense for those who want to learn and become better than their previous self’s and also see where they stand in the field compared to others. I can myself honestly trying this in the future if need be. In all honestly there have been groups I’ve been in where I could be considered the worst, whether that be in software or any group/based activity or environment. In these situations you can feel yourself wanting to be better and not be dead weight and after it I feel like I learned more on the subject, grew in it and overall bettered myself. Wherever I end up in the future and I find myself as a “big fish” in a small pond unaware of the other bigger fish out there I will use this pattern to grow and better myself.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Matt's Blog by mattyd99 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Blogs: Draw Your Own Map

Hello and welcome back to benderson’s blog! On this edition of benderson’s blog, we will be discussing another pattern from the Apprenticeship Pattern book that contains many patterns that influence a computer scientist and how they should approach certain obstacles in their career. The one I chose today is called “Draw Your Own Map” which discusses the problem of your employer not having the career path that you want to do or fits your plan in your career. This really impedes your production to reaching your future goals and becoming the best you can be. The solution that the book provides includes identifying the next step for your career and what you think should is the next stop on your path to becoming the best programmer you can be. If your job doesn’t meet your vision that you have yourself then you should start to seek other opportunities where you feel that it does meet your vision. You should also reassess your map as your journey changes, you may run into obstacles that are too big for you and you want to take detour, or something just isn’t right to you and you want to try something else. There is no map that is always right as changes always happen. The action the pattern suggest is to web storm where each of your jobs go and see if that map is good for you and fits all your goals if not keep trying until you get a map that does.

The reason I choose this pattern for this week is because as a Senior computer science major, I don’t really know what my map looks like right now. I work at a grocery store and I know that doesn’t have anything to do with computer science so once I find my first job in the computer science field, then I will be able to draw a map to see where I could end up. I could draw a map now but I don’t know exactly what I want to do after college yet. Since I’m a software concentration major, I would want to do something with software and software development but will see what happens when I start job hunting. My big goal in life is to create something revolutionary that changes how people perceive technology and apps, another big goal of mine would be working on video games at a company such as Microsoft or Sony. My map hasn’t been fully made yet but for sure one day I will be able to create it and find my journey as a computer science major. Thank you for joining me this week on benderson’s blog!

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

Pattern 4

 

PATTERN 5: THE WHITE BELT

I think this was a very informational chapter in the pattern lists. This chapter opened my eyes to the realization of my current situation. We are moving on to angular development for our capstone experience and its seems to be taking me longer to understand and grasp the concept. I had been using mostly java for most of my college programming years and have grown accustomed to the ways and norms of how things are done. But with this new angular task I realized that I had to learn and try to understand more things and even though I am a pretty quick at picking up new technology and understanding them, angular was just taking me long. But after reading this pattern, I understand that developing the deep knowledge and tricks in java and getting accustomed to being able to maneuver around in that specific language caused me to slow down my skill picking ability. Since I didn’t have to pick up much but instead implement and use what I had acquired. I believe and agree with the author of the book to some extent. I cannot just forget all I have learned and start from scratch but I can create a new array mentally that is to be filled with new technologies and languages and also try not to bring up what I already know when learning the new materials. But doing this, I will yearn a humble and fertile mind that will be able to grasp and understand anything that will be thrown at it. Also according to the author, unlearning what you have learnt and forcing yourself to believe in your novice status exponentially accelerates the new learning process and makes it easy to develop new insight and possibilities. I believe that its very important for me to understand that I have to give the new technology time and energy to allow my mind to digest it. And after that I will be able to combine it with my prior acquired knowledge, it is at that point that I can call my self a good programmer. Knowing one technology is good but being able to learn multiple and train your mind to utilize what you have learnt makes you a special programmer!

 

From the blog CS@Worcester – Le Blog Spot by Abranti3 Dada Kay and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

QA & TESTING – Episode 1

AB Testing – Episode 1 by Brent Jenson and Allen Page.

In this weeks testing episode, I went back to episode 1 just so I can address topics that Allen and Brent found necessary to start their testing podcast episodes with. Both Allen and Brent are high-end software developers and testers who worked for many big companies and performed many big tasks in the world of software developing and testing. Allen page was a software-testing manager who contributed to many books in the world of software testing. (His books are really good if you wanted any information of software testing). Brent Jenson also worked for Microsoft for over 20 years and accumulated many experience holding the position of software testing Director. They continued to talk about a presentation method used at Microsoft which I thought would benefit the software testing industry should we all decide to utilize it. They called it the Lean coffee lives. As comical as this sounds, lean coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated. These agendas are often address to things viewed as highly important and then goes all the way down to items on the list, which is viewed, as less important. So this sounded like something we can bring to our Testing Team meetings!! As quickly as the podcast began, Allen began to dive into real Software testing concepts. He began by emphasizing the great difference that lies between testing and quality. With constant changes and improvising’s, system and program bugs quickly lose values. Finding bugs on constantly or sometimes daily changing software does not constitute to the quality level of the software product. This is because today’s bug can be fixed in tomorrows code implementation and that can also create a new bug that could be fixed with the next program/code modification. Now here is the case that is it the Job of software testers to find bugs and errors in the program. Now it’s the job of a test manager to schedule test runs and passes for the specific product in development. How do you think a test manager could work successfully an environment where code changes and modifications are being made on a daily base? The proposed solution goes back to the beginning of the project where planning and thoughts have to be put in place. To put forth a great product, time allocation for testing has to be incurred in the project timeline. You can put out quality without considering all aspects of possible challenges and inputs.

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