Tag: tutorialspoint

Work Day 34: Happy Thanksgiving!

Very exciting…I have another user story! The other developer assures me that this is a fairly easy one, although he’s very experienced, so it remains to be seen what his idea of “easy” is. I’m basically supposed to create a role for our system. He’s going to go over where I need to make the change, etc. It sounds like I’ll be updating an XML file, so that shouldn’t be too difficult.

For my tech debt story, I finally figured out why I was seeing odd updates, along with mine in GitHub. It appears I was attempting to merge to the MASTER rather than to the release branch. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I figured out how to change this in the pull request. Now the “updates” are all mine.

My blog is going to be quiet for the next week or so. I’m taking the week of Thanksgiving off. I’m probably going to take some of the time to get caught up on my Udemy course, as I really find that’s been the best resource for learning Java. When our instructor went over the examples this week, it was easy for me to grasp them, as I’d already done a lot of work with the Udemy course and Tutorialspoint, which is another great site.

Most of all, I’m probably going to make a surreptitious trip to my local yarn store to get my DPN size 10 needles and work on my sweater. I’m going to wash and block the sheep sweater so that I can show it off to my relatives at Thanksgiving. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Work Day 17: Back to School!

…but all the other kids are WAY ahead of me.

Our first continuing ed session with our instructor was abbreviated. He’s having computer issues, so we mainly walked high-level through the object-oriented JavaScript code he’s got out in GitHub. We’re supposed to review this, and try to run it on our machines before our next session—later on, we’ll be doing more involved work, I’m sure. It looks like I’m going to have to get Node.js loaded onto my work laptop, as we’ll be using that. I’m not sure how well that’s going to interact with the rest of the apps on my computer. I think I’m going to ask my mentor and The Alum for their thoughts. I could possibly just do all the continuing ed work on my home laptop to be on the safe side…I’m going to load a copy of his GitHub code there anyway.

We also spent a good deal of time going over how we all are doing in our new jobs. Some people are doing very well, as either a) they don’t need Java, and/or b) they have people they can shadow. I’m at a standstill, as I’m still learning Java and Gosu, which is going GLACIALLY slowly. Honestly, I’m getting the most bang for my buck from the Udemy course at home, but it’s not very fast-paced. Some people in class have had good success using the online CodeAcademy site. I’m tempted to check it out, but realistically, between Udemy, Tutorialspoint, Pluralsight (zzzz…), studying our current code, and trying to learn Gosu (and somewhere in here I have to learn Spring Batch), I think I have enough going on. If I try to add one more learning tool, I’m pretty sure my head is going to explode.

This afternoon, a good friend pointed out that I should give myself a break. If nothing else, I’ve only had a decent work laptop on which to do ANYTHING for a short time now.

I hate feeling useless, though.

Work Day 15: Is anyone HERE???

Friday was very quiet at work. Everyone was either working from home or taking a day off. When I came back to work from Code Academy, I decided to not work from home for a while, as I wanted to be in the office to be able to consult with my coworkers and mentor in person if I needed help. Honestly, though, on a Friday, that’s completely useless. I’m tempted to go back to my old schedule.

I spent the day diving into Gosu, Pluralsight (fell asleep again) and Tutorialspoint. I swear, Tutorialspoint is the best find ever! They have exercises you can do. I figured out that some classes are repeats, so instead of blindly doing each exercise as a stand-alone, I’ve been combining exercises in the class referenced. It’s a bit harder, but it’s giving me more of an understanding of the process.

For Gosu, I managed to get rid of the multiple versions of Scratchpad, and use it successfully—I discovered that the Gosu Reference document, in its 400+ pages, has exercises you can do in the scratchpad. I also found another online Gosu reference: http://gosu-lang.github.io They also have an online scratchpad/“play” area where you can practice coding: http://gosu-lang.github.io/play.html

I have a ghastly busy weekend afoot, but I’m taking Monday off, so I’m planning to plow through more of the Udemy course. I’d try to do the Udemy course at work, but I have my home computer set up for it with a higher version of Java—I’d probably have to schlep the home laptop in, in addition to my huge new laptop. And then I’d need to go see a chiropractor…

Speaking of my unspeakably busy weekend, I got the baby sweater done! I just have to scan it for kitty fur and wrap it up for the shower today. I’d wash it, but it’s too late for that—I’m going to instruct the prospective mother to do so before she has her little tyke wear it. It came out nicely, if I do say so myself!

Work Day 14: A little help from my friends…

Another day of wading through more tutorials and documentation. The Gosu Reference Guide, at over 400 pages, is the War & Peace of software documentation. I did find examples that one can try out in the Gosu Scratchpad, which I’m going to try tomorrow. I do need to figure out how I ended up with FIVE copies of scratchpad in Guidewire Studio, and how to get rid of them.

I grilled more people on where the devil documentation is for how the Gosu jobs hang together and which are used for what, but every SINGLE person I quizzed, including developers I greatly respect, all had the same answer — there is none. One just has to “figure it out.”

I may have to start writing some documentation, if for no other reason than to preserve my own sanity.

In the meantime, after said respected developers gave me their two cents, they did help me out. One went over our GitHub Wiki with me, and even encouraged me to submit corrections for the wiki concerning the developer setup (after struggling through the process a few days ago, and figuring out certain things the hard way, I had a few suggestions). Another sent me links for further documentation on our Spring Batch process. He even sat down with me and showed me how to set up Eclipse. The Spring Batch Integration jobs are actually set up with a bit more rhyme and reason as to what they are and which integration system they’re tied to, so I’m hoping those might be easier to understand…

The best part was that he me introduced to Tutorialspoint. He showed me the tutorial they have for Spring Batch, but I also found their one for Java! https://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/index.htm. I started reading through it and it has exercises. I managed to do the first few.

One day I hope to eventually code real stuff…Mr. GitHub Wiki assured me that “No one is going to let you code yet.” Apparently, the idea is that once I have a better understanding of Java and Gosu, then I’ll most likely pair-program or shadow someone at first, or perhaps do a small user story.

I suppose it’s only fair, seeing as I’ve (according to HR) only been on the job 7 business days…