XP and Scrum Differences This is a continuation on where we left off in the previous post: Agile Methodologies: Comparing XP and Scrum. Last time we discussed the origins of Agile and began to explore some of the differences between XP and Scrum (i.e. sprint cycles and engineering practices). Let’s get back into it! Code Reviews A code review is a process of letting a person other than the original code developer inspect the new code changes.

Transitioning from XP to Scrum Today I will discuss two Agile frameworks: Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum. After working in an XP environment for several years, I’ve recently started on my first Scrum team. A lot of the content in this post is based on my own experiences with these two frameworks. Please note that these methodologies can vary slightly from place to place. Wait, what’s Agile again? The idea of Agile started with the Agile Manifesto.

Career Reflection I started my first software developer job two years ago. I’ve learned so much along the way and still have tons more to learn. In a career like this, the learning never stops as this is a continually evolving industry. I love new challenges and learning new things. In conversations with fellow developers they have been impressed in my ability to learn quickly and retain information. I’ve had several people ask me how I learn new technologies and keep my passion for software engineering so strong.

Why write unit tests? As developers, we want to write code that works and has as few bugs as possible. For example, when we write some production code we expect that given an input of abc the application will respond with 123. Writing and running automated tests can give developers a high level of confidence that their code does what it’s supposed to do. Unit tests isolate the system under test and throw a variety of scenarios in the system’s direction.

What is Version Control Version control is a tool used to collaborate between people working on a codebase. The most popular version control system (VCS) tool is called Git. We will look into how Git has made open source collaboration easier and how to use this useful tool. Background Git was originally developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Before those days, a lot of development teams would pass files around through email, floppy disks, and archived files.

Side Project While on vacation in India, I was given the opportunity to work on an Android app for my brother-in-law. The app would be for registering employees and would have time reporting functionality. His staff is less than 20 at the moment so I thought that Firebase would be a great utility for this project. Firebase Overview I learned about Firebase recently from a Udemy course that I am taking on Android Development.