DEV Community: SamuelIZABAYO

Quality Over Velocity

SamuelIZABAYO — Sun, 20 Mar 2022 09:56:55 +0000

Without excluding the IT business, it is highly likely that all professions today involve some level of stress. On top of having to meet deadlines, dealing with last-minute changes in requirements, and dealing with people, software engineers have to labor in front of a computer for 8+ hours, which adds to the stress.

One of the pillars of agile software development is self-organization, which is a must-have skill for a software engineer to be able to handle day-to-day tasks, especially when working in teams, allowing everyone to comprehend the larger context of the project, making decision-making more faster and easier.

You are free to choose, but you are not free to alter the consequences of your decisions.”
― Ezra Taft Benson

We make numerous judgments every day. We frequently make these judgments on our own, without any formal procedure in place, and often without even realizing it.
Few developers have a system in place for understanding context and repercussions and making better decisions.
Decisions might be simple or complex by nature. The more complicated ones are more difficult to create. The more difficult it is to make a decision, the more willpower it will take.

This week was not easy for me and my teammate ManipleKwizera on the backend, since sending an email to a registered user proved to be a difficult process for the three days we spent trying to fix it.
We were able to repair it thanks to our beloved senior developer KagaboFaustin by twiddling a handful of our laptop options.

To summarize, a smart software developer should prioritize quality over speed; providing a good working product to the world should be the primary goal, rather than releasing one that is buggy.

Time: A sequence of existence

SamuelIZABAYO — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 09:59:02 +0000

It is rightly said "Time and Tilde wait for none".
In our lives, time has become so valuable that we equate it with our accomplishments in a variety of areas. Sports, politics, and technology, to mention a few, all have time dimensions that be quantified. From sunset till night, high tide and low tide due to the moon, the four seasons everything is completely time dependent.

For all developers, time management at work is a challenge. Completing deadlines, maintaining a healthy mind and body, eating a decent meal, and spending quality time with loved ones all contribute to a positive and optimistic day.

We have a tendency to do things like showering, eating, etc. on autopilot. Our brains have different capacities for dealing with unexpected problems as they arise, as well as evaluating our own needs in order to progress.

Developers improve by questioning whether each step makes sense and being able to solve most of the challenges presented at them in a reasonable amount of time and with a more or less ideal answer.

Some people are born entertainers, while others are not, but regardless of our circumstances, we all have room for improvement. Me and my teammate Samuel, we were able to prepare a good and insightful presentation on Black Lives Matter community, and Harriet Tubman, a freedom fighter, who escaped slavery and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, leading others to freedom.

One of the main benefits of GraphQl is the client's ability to request what they need from the server and receive that data exactly and predictably.
Apollo Client allows developers to define, handle, and make queries/mutations available within the application.

To summarize, critical thinking is a skill that makes a good developer the best one, and like any other, we can work on and improve.

Life biases

SamuelIZABAYO — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 10:24:30 +0000

The human brain is said to be a dual-processor, with a logical conscious system and a non-reflexive system, both of which are wired to make judgments about people's race and sex, as well as trustworthiness, to mention a few. A variety of circumstances impact our thoughts and behaviors, many of which are beyond our awareness and control.

We are taught not to judge a book by its cover, yet judgment is simple and requires little thought or reasoning, so it's often seen as an attempt to build hierarchies of better than and less than, superior to and inferior, to define worth in everyone and everything we encounter.

Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge. ~ Carl Jung.

Knowing what you want out of life is the first step in getting it. Values are described as moral concepts, attitudes toward the world, or conventions and behaviors that are deemed 'good' in a given group, community, or organization.
Companies like CodeOfAfrica and Awesomity Lab use clearly defined values to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals.

REST is seen by many developers as a road to avoid at all costs. Understanding the workings of REST has proven to be more difficult than anticipated for many developers, including myself. REST has proven to be too rigid to keep up with the constantly changing needs of the customers who use it.

As a lifesaver to many, GraphQL stepped in to reduce the number of API lines produced and database queries done.
Understanding GraphQl in the hours leading up to the Friday presentation was difficult and time consuming, but my teammate Maniple KWIZERA and I were able to prepare and deliver a good and insightful presentation.

To summarize, we should learn to focus on our commonalities rather than our differences, instill values in ourselves and others, and seek to overcome preconceptions in order to better understand cultural diversity.

A priceless gift: feedback

SamuelIZABAYO — Sun, 27 Feb 2022 09:59:42 +0000

Listening may appear to be a simple act, but it is frequently more complicated and crucial than many people believe.

Effective communication allows us to gain a deeper understanding of people and situations. Effective communication skills are essential for building a successful career.
Thanks to Mr. Hans, who showed us that feedbacks are gifts rather than threats, despite the fact that many people perceive them as such. He said that they should be one of the ways to help colleagues improve and progress in their area, as well as as human beings.

Before Git, a well-known version control system, there was no such thing as version control system (VCS), therefore developers had to carry their source codes around on hard drives or other storage devices and distribute them over email, which was difficult, stressful, and insecure.

Git effectively takes a snapshot of all your files at the time and preserves a reference to it, which is used to maintain the source code of software projects by a huge number of start-ups, collectives, and multinationals around the world, including Google and Microsoft.

When working on personal projects, it is not difficult for a newbie with a Linux background to understand Git.
The most serious issues come while working as a team on shared repositories while keeping each individual's contribution distinct.
Thanks to Mr. Yannick, CTO at Awesomity Lab, I expanded my understanding of git on a shared repo while working on pull requests for code acceptance, several product releases, and outstanding product documentation.

In a competitive business environment with increasing client demands, companies aim to quickly offer reliable software products to the market, as well as continuously improve them, which is one of the reasons they use DevOps services and apply DevOps for project development.

DevOps attempts to improve software development, testing, deployment, administration, and maintenance processes by streamlining, speeding them up, and increasing predictability, scalability, flexibility, and website security.
Understanding pipelines and being able to automate code integrations, as well as establishing pipelines for the deployment of software systems, is tough for a developer at first, but once they comprehend the notion, it takes a significant burden off their shoulders.

On the whole, standards for following during the development of a software project should be created ahead of time. To make it easier to maintain or add new features to software, it should include clear and easy-to-understand documentation.

A remarkable Friday

SamuelIZABAYO — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 22:06:48 +0000

After spending a week at Awesomity Lab and CodeOfAfrica, my perspective on boot camps transformed.

Eggs are a low-cost, high-nutrient source of protein. But none of us expected that moving a single egg on a ring held together by 5 threads would teach us two of the most fundamental skills in software engineering: collaboration and creativity. The fact that we had to move the egg and position it on top of an open bottle without speaking taught us that a team's efficacy, communication, collaboration, and combined efforts result in a better end.

As Henry Ford phrased it;

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

The Agile method of software development removed a significant amount of pressure from all stakeholders involved in the software development process.

Previously, software developers had to meet with their clients only during the requirements definition phase and upon handing over the project to the client. A software system could be in development for more than two years without reaching the outside world, causing clients to abandon the product, or the product could be released late, resulting in a small market if other similar goods were delivered earlier.
The agile technique stresses software developers working in teams with a client who has a complete understanding of what is being done and why. From the definition of user stories to the release of the product to the public, the client collaborates closely with software developers.
Miro is a tool that I learned about for the first time, and I was blown away by how well it facilitates teamwork in design and strategic planning.

We worked in pairs on coding challenges, commonly known as katas, which were designed to help us improve our critical thinking skills through the use of data structures and algorithms.

The 16 personalities website https://www.16personalities.com/ was used to learn about our roles and personality types, as well as to team up with people with similar personalities to practice public speaking and produce on-point presentations.

Finally, I can't leave without mentioning Friday, an excellent day for interns to set aside what they've been working on all week, put aside the coding issues and join together with all of the employees from both organizations to relax, drink, and enjoy activities like table tennis and football.