Russell's Learning Journal

 This week focused on testing.  Testing both the backend using unit test and the front end using Selenium.  The reading this week covered "larger test."  A larger test is a test where the scope is much larger than a unit test, which is usually limited to one thread, process, or machine, and involves several dependencies.  They tend to be much slower, rely on resources from other tests/traffic, and nondeterministic.  These larger tests can be browser and device testing, user evaluation, performance/load testing, configuration testing, etc.  These are all types of testing that unit tests simply cannot perform.

  How does React compare to other frameworks you have used for front end development?  I have not had much experience with front end development frameworks.  I have had little experience with JavaScript and HTML.  One thing I noticed about React that is helpful is the ability to have HTML embedded directly into JavaScript rather than have numerous HTML files and JavaScript files.  This is useful in maintaining readable code and code that is easily navigated.

In lab 1 on Junit you used a Mock.  In your own words describe what a Mock is and why it is useful in unit testing.    In the testing we did in lab 1 we used a mock to test if our functions were returning the correct data.  The purpose of the mock is to be able to test the code without relying on external dependencies.  This is useful in unit testing because external dependencies can have numerous issues such as a server being down or a different value being returned for every API request.  This makes it very difficult to test if the functions return the expected output.  It allows the logic of the code to be tested against set expected outputs, locally, to ensure the code functions as expected.

  What did you expect a course in Software Engineering would cover?    Starting this course in Software Engineering I expected to not only learn about the process from start to finish but also have hands-on experience with some front and back-end services that allow applications to run. After completing week 1, how has your opinion changed?  After completing week 1 this is for the most part accurate to what I predicted we would learn about.  The agile process is how a project is organized from beginning to end as well as organizes sprints so the team knows what to be working on in each interval.  We have not had any hands-on experience with the different front and back-end services yet but I am sure these topics will be in the upcoming weeks.