For my team’s sprint 3, there was not much more functionality we wanted to implement. On one hand we had the front end and back end working exactly how we wanted it to, for the full purpose of a demonstration. On the other hand, we knew that we would have to back track. The backend needed to be refactoring to fully represent an inventory backend instead of the guest info backend we had forced into working for us. This proved to be much more work than expected, more on that later. We also had a few different looks in regards to the actual display our front had. Slightly changing colors, logos, their sizes. All of the things you would expect when it comes to user interfaces and experience. While my own work focused mainly on the back end it was a good experience and very eye opening to work with the team members who were tweaking things and making different versions we were choosing from. It was fun to see what the tedious and seemingly bland work I was doing on the backend actually visualized and became something that felt actually usable.
For my own work on the backend, I was trying extremely hard to work with a teammate to go through Renaming and refactoring everything. At this point we had taken a backend that was being used to store guest information. Names, ID’s, and other identifying or important information. Them converted it to instead take the place of an inventory system that had not existed. This meant that the collections being used, the end points, the oaths, a lot of the comments, all of the documentation and all of the included tests. Would all need to be rewritten. What seemed easy on the surface quickly spiraled. Looking back it probably would of been better to dive into this issue before expanding on the whole project. By this time we had already connected the front end to it and a fetch script that worked as a middle man. After weeks of trying over and over to make this conversion. It became clear that it would have to become a project for whoever comes after us to work on. Although the opportunity is still available if I decide to take another shot at it, solo and on my own time.
In order to at least make some progress I had moved forward with rewriting all the tests. I am extremely grateful for having learned Mocha and Chai testing from an old classmate a full year ago. He was also, is surprising serendipity, the person who had worked on the original tests for the guest info backend. Once I realized this I reached out to him just to check in and he was able to give me a couple resources and remind me of an assignment we had done together that proved to be a massive help.
This helping hand from a friend I had made really brought me back to the section finding mentors of the apprenticeship patterns. Having a network with friends who have understanding and experience in areas where you’re lacking can be such an amazing resource to utilize. Surrounding yourself with smart people, even if they’re not directly involved in what you’re working on can be a saving grace.
In the end, not as many features and additions were made in comparison to the first two sprints. Sprint 3 was a fun challenging experience that helped me reconnect with an old friend and rediscover how much I love testing software.
With the original goals of all of the variable name changes, comment changing, documentation updates and rewritten tests. We were at least able to complete the documentation and testing. I even got the pipeline to finally pass with all of the tests and spelling checks.
I’m proud of what this team accomplished and the state of the project they were leaving behind for future teams to further develop.
If I don’t get to it first >:) it is open source after all
From the blog CS@Worcester – Mike St G – 448 by Michael St. Germain and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
