What I Did This Week:
- Fixed Issue #627
- Addressed some problems with PR #630
- Added a bit more to the Talk Editor tests
What I Plan to Do Next Week:
- See how much further I can get with the Talk Editor tests in a week
- Look for any small fix issues I can address in the last week
Problems:
- Some issues using QTest to simulate a user typing in changes to a talk
- I believe it is unlikely that I will complete the Talk Editor tests as promised.
Discussion:
I suppose we're approaching the end of the course now. I shouldn't get too complacent: I still have a few days left before lectures are officially over, and I might as well stick around the entire week to wrap up loose ends as necessary.
However, since this is, in theory, the last journal entry that will be considered as part of my course work, this seems like as good a time as any to do a bit of a retrospective on the whole experience.
I definitely know more than I did when I started the course. I can already think of ways I can use Git/Github, SQL, Qt, and unit testing in my personal projects in the future. I also have a slightly better understanding of Linux than I did before.
I want to emphasize that these aren't just specific technologies I've been learning. It would be one thing if, for example, I had used Subversion before and this was my first exposure to Git. But before this course, I hadn't had very much experience with any version control system, database programming language, or unit testing in general, let alone pytest or unittest specifically.
I think it's worth mentioning that I've had to get a lot of practice reading code for this course. This is not trivial. As Joel Spolsky said, it's harder to read code than to write it.
I am aware that I started out as the most experienced student in the Freeseer group. I've never been in any kind of work-experience program or internship or co-op. I've never taken a 200-level course in software engineering, or in most of the upper-division courses that do into any depth on actual software design.
If I wanted to be charitable to myself, I would say that I did the best I could under the circumstances.
If I wanted to be less charitable, I would suggest that I didn't take nearly enough advantage of all the expertise around me -- not just the mentors, but the other students.
But my problem is, what am I supposed to ask? I have a problem, and it goes beyond this course: i have trouble asking people for help. Over the past year or so, I have made a deliberate effort to ask for help more often, with some level of success. If I had to guess as to why I have this problem, maybe it's because I've had too many teachers who rolled their eyes or got angry whenever someone asked a question, with the reason that we should have been paying better attention, so I got this idea that ASKING QUESTIONS = ANNOYING (at least, when I do it. I don't think I've ever had that attitude about other people asking me questions.) My problem isn't exposing myself to the possibility of looking stupid -- I take it for granted that most of my actions are going to seem a bit silly by default. My problem is that I don't want to do things that I believe are annoying to other people, just like how I don't want other people to do things that they know annoy me.
Obviously, this is irrational. For one thing, I'm sure a lot of students have had teachers like that, but that doesn't stop them from asking questions. Plus, it is extremely rare for someone to actually be annoyed when I ask a question. The mentors and students in the Freeseer group have been nothing but helpful on the occasions when I've asked questions.
There is a reason I have obsessed over this in my blog posts. Learning a technical skill like programming with SQL is one thing, and will make me more informed about databases. But learning to effectively interact with other people and learn from them is more meta-level, and can allow me to more effectively learn technical skills. Oh, and also there's the small fact that forming meaningful relationships with other people is intrinsically worth doing. I like people, but I get anxious around them. I would hate to wake up in a couple decades and think about how much better my life could have been if I had just reached out a little more.
With this in mind, if I were to evaluate myself in this course with a percentage, what would I give myself? I believe it would be fair for me to pass the course, in the sense that I have fulfilled the basic requirements of the course, put in the hours, written the journal entries, and attended the Code Sprint and the hangouts. I've made contributions to the code, which can be verified on Github. So, I think a fair grade would be at least 60%.
However, I don't think I really went above and beyond. There were weeks when I slipped on the number of hours I worked, or when my hours were unproductive. I've already mentioned how I haven't interacted enough with the other members of the team, which means that I didn't give myself the opportunity to collaborate with other people on specific tasks. As a result, I was not nearly as productive as I could have been. I would not give myself more than 80%.
This has been a good experience. Everyone I have met in the process (mentors, students, professors, and so on) has been extremely helpful and nice. If I have been less than completely productive, it is my own responsibility, and has nothing to do with any of the people I have had the pleasure of working with.
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