100 Days of Code, Part 1

Image courtesy Business Insider - Flat Iron Schools India

Setting short-term goals is how a Sandwich lives: something that we can fit into the myriad of interruptions that are our days. Some of them are tasks - empty one rack of dishwasher, check for issues, then continue. Others are more important.

Planning time to fill out an application can be the most difficult thing. I love the ones where it says "Submit a resume and cover letter." I can do this: if it takes me seven or eight attempts to write a letter, they need not know.

But, often times the goals have a larger purpose - I'm currently doing the 100 Days Of Code, as a goal to both make sure I move forward daily with getting a job, as well as completing classes and a couple of projects. I will try and share some of my thoughts on it as I go.

As a part of 100 Days, I'm using Twitter more (if you use Twitter, change your password!) There is a marvelous supportive group there, and a lot of sharing. I have spoken to many of the people in less than 200 words, and shared their accomplishments. And had the delight of getting the same back.

Okay, so the 100 Days is supposed to let you get the habit of working on something every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. So, I failed at that - I'm using it to get things done. This seems to be that larger failing in the world of code, at the moment.

My mentor, great man that he is, is giving me huge amounts of the encouragement and support I feel I need, and the ones that I speak to on Twitter and elsewhere are also encouraging, and share thoughts and ideas (and code reviews) that help so much. Thanks to them, I have moved to a more-productive mindset, when I get the chance.

30 Days of Postman - for Testers!

https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-brown-cat-lying-beside-a-laptop-and-toys-5468268/ Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels Working with developer- focused tools can be a challenge for some testers: we may know what the words mean, but haven't used those skills recently enough to make the tasks simple. Or we may not have ever used them, other than at a quick glance to make sure that what we are getting matches what it should be sending. And some give results that require us to go find another team member to help interpret the results. Being a more-independent tester has always been one of my goals - being able to use the tools that are common in the team, and be able to do at least basic tasks that support my tests with them. Our team used Postman for many of the API tasks that we had, so exploring this tool was a natural fit. There are alternatives it there, both graphical and command line, so feel free to explore! The items that you can do, and tools that help

Where Is It? Part 1 - Inputs

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels I am job-searching, and running into some coding challenges. Most of them are simple - some seem to want one-line solutions that require two cups of coffee and a half-hour to figure out what they want. Others are far above where my skills lie, and these I give a try for, and learn. And then there are the ones that offer, seemingly randomly, a challenge - within my skills (or at least my research skills) - that could be used as part of a larger project that I want to work on. This was the case last week, when I tried for a position that was a bit above what I felt I could do comfortably. The challenge was to let someone enter items, and then give back their location. In a language I am just familiar enough to be a danger to myself in. Happily, and thinking forward about how I could use this as a part of a larger program that would use something like this to interact with the user. And also, this is command line, and thinking of how to set this up to

Do Your Tests Wobble?

Image by delo from Pixabay “The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.” ― Confucius I was asked to pair Blog with Lena Weiberg - much to my shock and delight. This was the perfect opportunity to hear another point of view on something, and share it with the wider community. ~ Part of being a good tester, to me, is making sure I stay aware of the trends in development. Knowing how the team is working can help get comments and questions to them at the proper times, and has the information that can be acted on. In this quest, I attended a recent online conversation where the topic was primarily on the size of 'steps' taken in software development: making sure each step takes a reasonable amount of time, that it leaves the system in a state that isn't worse than it was before the change, and that could - if needed - be deployed at this point. The concept of “wobble” (I'm not sure

Distorted Rovings

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