What did you do this past week?
This week, in class I learned about …
- Toolchains (set of programming tools used for software development)
- Assertions
- Unit Test Frameworks
Outside of class, I played tennis and spikeball — trying to enjoy the beautiful weather.
What’s in your way?
I need to pull the Docker image so I can get my environment set up for the first project.
What will you do next week?
Next week I will get Docker and get my environment set up. I will also setup my GitLab account and I will work on the first project.
If you read it, what did you think of the makefile?
Makefiles are a bit confusing since some of the commands are not really apparent in their purpose. I think learning the common commands used for Makefiles is very useful and hopefully, I will be able to apply the commands I learned about this week to make more makefiles in the future.
What was your experience of Docker? (this question will vary, week to week)
I haven’t gotten Docker yet, but it seems relatively simple. Some of the Docker commands are a bit verbose and it seems there are quite a lot of different commands and functionality from the command line, but I think I have a better understanding of how to use the basic commands.
What was your experience of assertions? (this question will vary, week to week)
I haven’t really used assertions in most of my programming, but after learning about assertions and their importance, I definitely will use assertions more in my code as well as using unit test frameworks. I learned that assertions are not good for user errors because the tracebacks that assertions output are far too detailed for the user, however, they are good for developers as they provide us with a lot of information about where the code fell apart… We want to use assertions through using unit test frameworks because if we use assertions in our testing without a unit testing framework, our programs will crash as soon as one assertion fails which will prevent the rest of our tests from running.
What was your experience of unit tests? (this question will vary, week to week)
I haven’t used any unit test frameworks, but learning about Python’s unittest framework makes me confident that I will use these frameworks to test my code from now on.
What made you happy this week?
Being able to enjoy the outdoors this week made me really happy. Also getting to spend time with friends and family made this week great.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
In class, I think a tip I learned is to use unit test frameworks and then use a coverage tool to see if your tests are doing a good job of testing all your code.
Outside of this class, I am learning about Swift and Xcode. Honestly, I was blown away by how aesthetic Xcode is, and how there are so many neat features. I really like the drag and drop functionality from the storyboard to your program and I think it makes iOS development intuitive and inviting to learn!
