Rick - Behaviour, Strategy & Implementation - 3 weeks

[TheRick88]

Learning Objectives

Priorities: 🥚, 🐣, 🐥, 🐔 (click to learn more)

There is a lot to learn in this repository. If you can't master all the material at once, that's expected! Anything you don't master now will always be waiting for you to review when you need it. These 4 emoji's will help you prioritize your study time and to measure your progress: - 🥚: Understanding this material is required, it covers the base skills you'll need to move on. You do not need to finish all of them but should feel comfortable that you could with enough time. - 🐣: You have started all of these exercises and feel you could complete them all if you just had more time. It may not be easy for you but with effort you can make it through. - 🐥: You have studied the examples and started some exercises if you had time. You should have a big-picture understanding of these concepts/skills, but may not be confident completing the exercises. - 🐔: These concepts or skills are not necessary but are related to this module. If you are finished with 🥚, 🐣 and 🐥 you can use the 🐔 exercises to push yourself without getting distracted from the module's main objectives. ---

1. Remix

Practice studying and remixing other people's solutions to coding challenges. Create your own solutions by mixing and matching pieces from other people's code.

• 🐣 Reconstructing: You can reconstruct a variety of solutions to the same challenge when they are presented as parsons problems.
• 🐣 Analyzing: You can analyze a function written at your level. This includes:
  • [ ] Behavior: Write documentation, test cases and use cases to describe the function's behavior.
  • [ ] Strategy: Describe the function's strategy using plain english.
  • [ ] Implementation: List the language features in a function and explain how each one is used.
  • [ ] Small Changes: You can think of 2+ changes to the function's implementation that would not change it's strategy.
• 🐣 Remixing You can analyze several solutions to the same challenge then ...
  • [ ] Write: Your own solution by remixing the ones you studied.
  • [ ] Explain: How the other solutions inspired yours; what ideas did you take from them? what ideas did you not take?
  • [ ] Analyze: Complete a write-up your own solution as though someone else wrote it.

2. Write

• 🐣 Function Design:
  • [ ] Writing Tests: Given a working function, you can write passing test cases to describe it's behavior.
  • [ ] Writing Functions: You can design multiple solutions to the same code challenge, keeping notes about different experiments you tried along the way.
• [ ] 🐣 Generating Documentation: You can write a JSDoc comment for your solutions and run a script to generate markdown documentation.
• [ ] 🐣 Fuzz Testing: You write solutions that pass randomly generated test cases.
• 🐣 Test Driven Development: You can solve open-ended, ambiguous coding challenges at your level:
  • [ ] Reading Docs: You can understand what the function is supposed to do by reading it's JSDoc description.
  • [ ] Writing Tests: You can write test cases before there is a function to test.
  • [ ] Writing Functions: You can write one function that passes the test cases you have prepared (even if it's just 1 test case!).
  • [ ] Refactoring: You can improve your function's implementation without failing any test cases that were passing.
  • [ ] Iterative Development: You can repeat the TDD process until you are satisfied with your test cases and solution.
• [ ] 🐔 Code Golf: Write your solutions with the fewest characters possible! This won't help you write readable code, but it will make you think deeply about JS, your strategy and implementation.

3. Review

• 🐣 Continuous Integration: You can check your code's quality before pushing so your CI checks all pass.
  • [ ] Formatting
  • [ ] Linting
  • [ ] Testing
• [ ] 🐣 Code Review: You can use a checklist to give a thorough, positive and constructive review of your classmates' solutions.
• [ ] 🐔 Code Coverage: You can explain what code coverage is, why it's important, and can write unit tests with 100% code coverage.

---

[TheRick88]

Week 1

• [ ] I have pushed my progress to my fork of exercises repo

I Need Help With:

Im practicing writing tests so I guess I need to continue doing that.

What went well?

Getting more familiar with syntax for functions and tests

What went less well?

Overall logic of tests is something im still struggling, I just need more practice.

Lessons Learned

Passing tests and increase logic comprehension.

Sunday Prep Work

[danielhalasz]

@TheRick88 I do not see the three write-ups in your fork: https://github.com/TheRick88/solution-write-ups

[TheRick88]

Week 2

• [ ] I have pushed my progress to my fork of exercises repo

I Need Help With:

Im still having troubles with tests syntax, Im still trying to catch up on my own.

What went well?

-

What went less well?

tests syntax

Lessons Learned

-

Sunday Prep Work

[danielhalasz]

• [ ] I have pushed my progress to my fork of exercises repo

this link does not work..because it is empty 🙂 and not pointing to your fork

[danielhalasz]

Im still having troubles with tests syntax, Im still trying to catch up on my own.

I think you are not a shy person, so if you have troubles for long, it could be a good idea to ask classmates and coaches on Slack. The syntax can be confusing, but there are examples provided in the repo and Jest has a documentation online as well. Is there anything specific that troubles you?

[danielhalasz]

It would be also nice, if you could try to put a little bit more effort into trying to catch up with the class.

[TheRick88]

It would be also nice, if you could try to put a little bit more effort into trying to catch up with the class.

Daniel,

Thank you for the feedback.

Let me give you a little context and maybe some feedback to you as well. I do know Im not a shy person, but asking to my classmates is something that not always works since almost all of them have the same issues with the homework. They do not understand what they are doing, they are just finding the solution but not knowing entirely why or how did it work. (Im not assuming this, this is a common daily conversation I have with most of them).

The reason why is simple: We have too many topics and subjects on the HYF class curricula that we dont have enought time to process it, I feel like if its like verting more and more water on a full cup. So, therefore, Im trying to catch up with the class, but its taking me a bit more time since Im trying to do it fully understanding things. That takes time.

So I keep trying to fill out the excercises or solutions but I really dont understand any of it since the foundations are not solid enough. This again, is not your problem, I owe you and all the coaches your time and effort you are doing here, you are just great! Is just the time vrs the over saturated curricula tha HYF has.

If by being totally honest here, you or any other coach consider is best for me to step out of classes, I will understand. Once again, thank you for your time and willingness toward us.

Rick

[danielhalasz]

Dear Rick, thank you for the long comment and feedback, it is much appreciated.

You are right, the HYF course is very hard and demanding. Just like being a developer is. This is why we try to emphasize it from the beginning that all of you need to study at least 4 hours a day, or in other words 24 hours per week, to be able to learn the suggested study material.

It is not easy, but it is possible, as the positive example of many HYF alumni shows, who now work in the sector. All of them say, that they needed to put in tremendous amount of time and discipline to get where they are now.

Many web developer courses are actually shorter than 9 months, but even with the HYF course, there are many areas, that we just do not have time to cover. We also try to make everyone understand that asking questions is good and even if the response takes some time, all the coaches are happy to help.

It is completely normal to feel lost and confused, but we are here to help to find more solid ground!

[alexander-lopez-s]

@danielhalasz I am very sorry to jump here but this comment really calls my attention. Speaking for myself, I have tried following the topics as they are and completing the exercises as much as I can, but sometimes it is just impossible! Why? Because I have hundreds of questions that need an immediate answer but nobody is sitting down next to me to help in the moment, and if I do not get those answers I cannot move forward. Also, a single lesson on Sundays is not enough to cover all the HYF curriculum, it does not fit my particular learning rhythm. Discord is indeed a great tool to ask but I can't spam you guys with my tons of concerns.

I understand that this course requires time and dedication, but I have those 2 elements, yet I can't manage to understand all of the topics. If I may suggest, I would try making the lessons different, easier to understand and with a different material rather than Study Lenses so that when we arrive home, we have solid bases and confidence to start coding by ourselves. And you might say that many classes have graduated using the same methodology and study material, but it will never satisfy 100% of the students.

I am grateful for all of your time and patience, but I think some small changes can be performed for a better student's experience.

[EliasMlopez99]

I also have to point out, (since we're starting to talk about this). I think that having a methodology that takes you right where you want would be easier, than taking and covering as much as you can, don't get me wrong even with all that we've seen i managed to understand a lot of stuff that i thought i would never learned. However sometimes i think we spend to much time trying to arrive to where "we" want. A good methodology in my opinion would be to give, the most important information, less explanation more practice. I know we were supposed to study ourselves but not all of us have a lot of time, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. That's why having a methodology that addresses that sort of people would be great. I am not saying change your way of teaching right now, not tomorrow not this course. Beforehand thanks for reading my comment and thanks to The Hack Your Future team , Epitech and the people that make possible this course

[danielhalasz]

Dear Cris and Elias, your comments are appreciated, so I would like to put the discussion into a bit of context. HackYourFuture is an international network of coding schools that started in 2016 in Amsterdam for newcomers, refugees and people with difficult access to the job market, with the goal of helping to bring people closer to finding a meaningful job in a new country, with the help of volunteer coaches. Over the years, the course has gradually improved to be what it is today, with many years of experience reflected in it.

Since it is based on volunteering, and since many HYF students are working or have to take care of kids and family, to let them follow the course and since most coaches are only available on weekends, the decision has been made that classes are on Sundays. We know that is not enough. That is why we have Discord/Slack to try to provide answers as they arise from going through the suggested study materials. This is expected and we are looking forward to the questions. It has been also said several times, that if there is a need for it, we can try to organise extra mid-week follow-up sessions, if there are coaches available. So far, there were no such requests.

And yes, we agree 100% that we should only provide the most important information, so many things are left out of the course, but this is the bare minimum that you have to know, if you want to find a job as a junior developer. Frankly speaking, even this does not guarantee that you will get a job and you will have to put in extra effort to do some small personal projects, a portfolio page and keep learning new tools, technologies, frameworks, languages along the way.

Some parts of the course could be made a bit more fun, if we had the people and the time to do so, but it also has to be said that programming and learning is not always fun 🙂 . It is also normal, that you struggle in the process.

The Sunday classes are there to give explanations to questions that are more difficult to learn on your own and for which no Youtube tutorials are available. The rest of the week is for practicing all this with the provided exercises.

For people who do not have a lot of time, they have to put in extra effort, to make it work and to study and practice in unusual hours and yes, to even sleep less. This is not an easy career and you can expect it to be difficult later on as well. That said, it also provides satisfaction, constant possibility of improvement, the possibility of working in English, a more flexible schedule, etc.

Thank you for understanding, hope this helps to put some of the decisions into some context.