Regardless of how I feel about such a thing, it was nice to get some more insight in to what is actually being used in the corporate world.  Most of my web development experience has been in PHP and with apache.  In fact, I didn’t even realize that many people even used Java for web development.  I just assumed that most web development was done in either PHP or .NET.

This week at work one of my big tasks was to write tests for a library that had been written previously and is now being used in a system my team is developing.  In writing these tests, I have been able to learn several things about the library:

1. How the code works, and what it is supposed to do
2. The database that the code was written for is not the same one we are using
3. The library was missing several key functions

If I hadn’t written test for this library, I would still have been in the dark about how it was doing what it was doing (even though I had written a web service that called all the library functions).  I definitely wouldn’t have realized that it was missing features, and I definitely wouldn’t have known why it wouldn’t have worked with our current database.  So, I saved myself and my team plenty of head scratching by writing tests.  Who would have thought test would save time?

Regardless of why it is different, I am definitely feeling the pressure.  It’s very interesting to see how I deal with this kind of different pressure.  In some ways it has been hard since I definitely feel like there is not enough time to complete this project by the deadline.  I know that the deadline isn’t completely a hard deadline, but I still want to get it done as quickly as possible.

It makes me realize that having a good manager can really make things go well.  My manager has been very helpful in answering my questions and helping me deal with the timelines/expectations of those affected by my project.  I’m very glad that I have been able to observe this kind of interaction, it seems to be a great experience.

Regardless of why I had to switch projects, I have noticed that if it has been a while since I last worked on the project I am switching to I often have to spend time re-orienting myself to the project.  This has been even more true with my freelancing in the years past (especially when it could be over a year before I come back to something).

I know it will be hard to force myself into a new system, but I really think that I need to start keeping notes about what I am doing on a project on a daily basis.  This is really so much easier said than done.  Code commenting can sometimes feel useless, so I can’t even imagine what it will seem like when I am writing a description of what I have just done.

As far as schedules go, when I was full time I pretty much only worked from 8 am until 4 pm.  Occasionally I would need to come in later or leave earlier, and that was just fine.  Sometimes I would even stay late one day so I could come in really late the next day.  This was just fine as well.  In fact, it didn’t really matter when I worked as long as I was there for my meetings, and my schedule didn’t interfere with getting work done.  I know that I would be able to do just fine at a company with a more rigid schedule, but I definitely prefer the loose system that I have now.

Now about dress codes; I think I would most prefer a completely relaxed dress code (aka jeans and t-shirt).  I can say with complete sincerity that I have had no problem with the business casual code that I have had at my internship.  Again, I think I could get used to a regular business standard dress code, but I think that I would prefer more relaxed.  This part has surprised me the most during my internship.  I used to think that I wouldn’t be able to stand not being able to just wear jeans and t-shirt to work.  Fortunately I have been able to discover that this is not the case.

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P.S. for those of you subscribed to my blog, I have been writing blog posts for a coop course that I am taking.  Feel free to ignore these…

The amazing thing is that when you have a lot of people, these systems are ridiculously important.  The database administrators would be bogged down by requests if every single request was different.  They would have to interpret each request before they could even do the work.

The really interesting thing to think about is how important it is for a system to be setup correctly from the beginning.  I know that no system can be perfect from the beginning, but that first try is seriously important.  If it is really screwed up, it can take forever to get it to a good place, especially if it is not readily apparent where the problem lies.  With all the systems setup to safe-guard the other systems, it is very difficult to get something to change.  It just burns this thought in my head: a new system must be very well thought out before being implemented (this is of course assuming the system is within a large organization…)

This week I received the best explanation from my manager at work.  The best part was being able to see the real world implementation of the factory pattern.  I think the key thing that I was missing was that the factory will return an object that implements an interface, so you can have any number of implementations of the interface that will all be valid objects.  Add in some inversion of control and you have yourself an amazing dynamic system where you can drop in libraries at anytime (even runtime) and use them as though they were compiled with the system.

So I have to learn 2 new things at once to be able to complete this project.  Kinda interesting…

It definitely gets me thinking about how to make this kind of system work  better.  There’s not much I can do for this particular situation since there isn’t any pre-project work that I can do on either unknown.  It seems like it would be helpful to have worked on both systems prior to this project.  I know as a new employee I will always have to be learning new systems, but it seems like everything would work a little smoother if it was one new system per project.

I am definitely learning a lot working at Jackson, but what happens when I have a lot going on at school?

Speaking of learning a lot, here’s a few things I have picked up so far at Jackson:

• Programming in “the industry” is quite different from programming at school
  • A solution isn’t necessarily the right solution just because it works and is fast
  • There are standards that are in place that are kinda like unspoken rules at a secret club
• I actually like programming in Java
  • It’s fairly similar to the languages I have been using
  • Eclipse makes learning the language much easier with autocomplete and syntax checking
• I will never know it all, and I need to rely on others
  • I have been put on projects where I literally know nothing
  • People higher up aren’t the only ones that have good answers, many times my peers know as well