Jason's Development Blog

 Universities love documentation in their Computer Science courses. I once got 100% on a piece of coursework in no short part because I provided 60 pages of documentation. (autogenerated from comments).

Here’s a little tid-bit: Documentation is a dying art. Universities are way behind. Using TDD, with massive function names and tests to document your code and how it should be used, is the way the industry is going, has been going for the last 10 years and continues to be going. Even large parts of game development, often dismissed as “not possible to test drive”, are being test driven (because the dismissers are wrong, and large parts of game programming can be test driven).

But most universities pay a small lip-service to tests and unit testing, it gets mentioned, you write one for your coursework, it vanishes into the great nether. This is wrong.

Computer Science Students are completely unprepared for industry, and the lack of current practices such as Agile Development and Test Driven Design being taught in Universities is definitely one of the reasons for this.

The option placement year is not optional for anyone at University who wants to work as a Software Developer. It’s the only exposure to modern Software Development they’ll get during their time at University. Because the University sure as heck isn’t going to teach them.

Quote of the Day
“By education most have been misled.”
John Dryden, The Hind and Panther, Part III, line 389.

So….Hello! Yeeeah, been awhile huh? Well what’s changed? Well, I have a job for one. A Paid Internship to be exact. I’m almost like a real software developer. Also I’m being introduced to a world of professional techniques like Test Driven Development, which is pretty darn neat and why have I never used it before? Why do universities not try and teach this? You’re hardly prepared for the industry if you do nothing in common with the industry. And that’s a good summary of university education.

On the plus side, I shall has much monies soon. And the work there is definitely interesting, with many Agile Software Development techniques to develop the cutting edge software so I’m learning a lot of practical, real world tricks of the trade.

On the down side, I don’t have much time for other things like personal projects or sleeping until noon. I do so miss sleeping until noon.

Quote of the Day
“When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim’s body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods.”
Ex Oblivione – H.P. Lovecraft

I’m working on a little project around coursework at this moment using thread pools and a task-based system. Interesting work thought it does require constant vigilance otherwise the program explodes into tiny pieces of fiery pain. But still, interesting. I’ll do a proper right-up of what I’m trying later, including how I’m trying to make the rendering parallel and capable of scaling to N cores.

For now, I want to brag.

This is the grading for one of my courseworks, a Toy FAT-based File System written in Java. Not the last box, A**. That was for my extension to the existing system. I’m reasonably sure this is my lecturer being ‘cute’ because…well, I don’t think you can get an A** in a university coursework. Either way, total grade for coursework: A*.

Quote of the Day
“Oh, that… well… since I believe I can do the impossible, I just don’t think about it and do the impossible.”
Michael Garcia, The Impossible Man

So having finally gotten most of my coursework handed in via a string of painful all-nighters and more caffeine than should be humanly possible, I’ve just got a few weeks left until my first year at university is officially over. I do have a sneaking suspicion I failed one module (Databases), but I guess I’ll deal with that as it comes.

And what do I have to do in those few weeks? Two more subject’s coursework and a few exams…meep. Anyway, one of those subjects is Human Computer Interaction and for the coursework I either have to make a blog post essay or video essay in which I review two hardware or software designs. One of those designs is one I believe to be good, the other bad. A hall of fame and hall of shame if you will.

Since I have a camcorder and a blog I could do either, even a weird hybrid blog video…a vlog, if you will. I’m leaning towards video at the moment, and have started work on some scripts to see if it works.

In making the video I’m probably going to steal concepts from some of the That Guy With The Glasses crew (big fan of that site), and re-use some from a script I was working on earlier for a movie review I was considering doing, but I’m still not sure exactly what I’m going to Fame and Shame.

Video game controllers seem like an easy hardware choice. I have one or two lying around and controllers for the older consoles aren’t exactly expensive. It’s a bit predictable and was basically the first thing suggested by the lecturer, but I guess your university education isn’t the best thing to be all hipster-esque about xD

When the uni year ends and I’ve recover from the massive hangover after I get absolutely gazebo’d to celebrate, I’ll probably start updating more. Maybe even actually make that movie review…

Quote of the Day
“I’ve never been afraid of the highest heights,
Or afraid of flying now.
I’ve never been afraid of the wildest fights,
Not afraid of dying.
I need a new fun fair ’cause your scaring me and I don’t like where were going,
I guarantee you’ll miss me ’cause you changed the way you kiss me.”
Changed The Way You Kissed Me – Example

Hello from a place that is not Nottingham! Yep, I moved house. Well, temporarily…ish. I’m in Brighton and Hove now. Yes, Brighton and Hove. That’s what the area of England is called. Honestly.

I am going to be studying Computer Science at the University of Brighton. You see, awhile ago I was going to Bath. They rejected me because I failed my A-Levels. Well, I didn’t fail. I got BBC, which people tell me isn’t bad. But I failed enough to not get into my choice universities. Fortunately (or un, we shall see) Brighton had places in clearing (BBC is dead on in terms of their requirements) and I didn’t fancy repeating the year, especially since the college I was going to stopped it’s Computing course so I would have to go to a different one…yeah, too awkward.

Instead, I begged until they offered me a place in clearing ^^ So, here I am. Hello Brighton and Hove. I frantically found a place to live with some other students whom I have never met, and I moved in yesterday, and so far am the only one living here has been jolly devilishly handsome me.

I met the neighbours (another student house) and they seem nice, but that’s about the extend of my socialisation so far. I’m still getting used to the place. In another day or too, my “joint tenants” will arrive and we’ll all meet face-to-face and the fun can begin.

In the rush I’ve not done much programming lately, though I did make Tic-Tac-Toe with the Project Pauper Framework. That’s…something, right? It’s only like an hour of programming at most. Not a lot, but something. Now I’ve a bit of time I may start work on something else, Space Invaders maybe?

Or maybe I’ll start work on the AudioCore component of Project Pauper…because audio is such a delight to work with…

Quote of the Day
“The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and their security, are the best and only foundations of his real greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.”
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter V