Week 2

What did you do this past week?

The first part of the week I spent most of my time doing the readings and reviewing Python to prepare for the quizzes and projects. I especially found the reading about EXTREME PROGRAMMING (it’s so extreme that it must always be typed with caps-lock on) interesting because it provided me insight into another efficient software development workflow that is supposed to increase efficiency by improving the communication process between customers and programmers. This workflow is somewhat similar to the SCRUM software development framework, so it will be interesting to read further in order to provide more contrast between the two and to understand if, or when, one is better than the other. I plan to discuss this comparison once I finish all of the readings on the topic in a few weeks.

I spent the second half of the week working on the first project for the class. I have made significant progress and am passing 2 out of 3 HackerRank tests right now.

What's in your way?

Currently, I am focusing most of my attention on finishing the first project for the course. Unfortunately, today I had trouble implementing the eager cache optimization for the project. I have completed all other optimizations to the project that I could think of, but this is only allowing me to pass 2 out of 3 tests on HackerRank. I hope to complete the eager cache optimization tomorrow which will also hopefully allow me to pass all the tests with my highly optimized program.

I also did not do as good as I would have liked on a quiz this week, I plan to study more next week for that quiz.

What will you do next week?

I plan to start next week by finishing all the optimizations necessary to pass all the HackerRank tests. Once completed, I will make sure I have completed all of the other requirements in the first project’s workflow including code styling and git requirements.

What's my experience of the class?

I have really enjoyed the class so far and have been especially enjoying the first project! This project has given me practice working with git and also made me more diligent about writing a solid testing suite for my software.

What's my pick-of-the-week?

As mentioned in the previous section, I have been really enjoying learning about Extreme Programming and comparing this framework with SCRUM. If you have not had a chance to work in a SCRUM environment or learned about SCRUM, I highly recommend this FREE web series that will teach you the rules necessary to thrive in a SCRUM workflow. Follow this link for some cool videos on SCRUM: http://scrumtrainingseries.com/