Course Reflections
For this to be my final semester, I had to take 7 courses, and so I did. I figured it would be challenging and it definitely was – especially also working part-time plus other responsibilities, but sometimes you 'just gotta do what you gotta do'.
I know I’m probably not the only one as there were others that were in similar positions; and to you all out there who’s graduating: Kudos! Cheers! This chapter is done, complete or whatever your word is, either way, run and tell that, run and tell that, run and tell that, home home home homeboy (if you don’t get the reference, click here and enjoy)
Okay, on to what is important though: My reflections on the course.
The first half was interesting, and I liked the fact that we had a tentative schedule that allowed us divide and devote our time appropriately to the course.
It was good to learn about Fedora’s build and release and I enjoyed creating RPMs and going through the process of creating our own SPEC files, testing build times, signing our RPMS and testing packages on different platforms.
I have to say that was definitely one of my favorite parts of this course. If I had to do this course again (and not that I want to, lol) and choose a project I would have chosen one to rebuild packages or test builds and build times, but no worries, there was only love for BuildAPI...and some frustration. I’ll leave my thoughts on that for last.
As I mentioned in my GIT blog post I’ve used version control clients (SVN) before but never GIT. However, after playing around with it for this course, I actually used it for another course, INT620, which involved creating a website using PERL and TT2. I used GIT to keep track of changes to the website files and it worked out quite well…for the period of time I used it as we eventually switched to using Mercurial. I’m kind of ranting off topic here. Let’s move on to the projects.
It was my fault for missing the class where Chris Tyler explained each project and the respective general expectations. However, we were given a wide choice of projects to choose from that were well thought out and incorporated a little bit of everything; it definitely gains points on my recommendation scale for this course! In regards to that, if there any students who have not taken SBR600 yet, I would highly suggest that you do and also see my “Advice” section later on this post.
The second half of the course focused on developing my chosen project - BuildAPI. I must say there were difficulties along the way and these projects require our own initiative to progress. There were the tasks of learning Python, Pylons, SQLAlchemy queries, MVC model (see previous blog posts) and integrating it all. Although, I may have went too deep into it and should have been more focused on specific goals rather than trying to figure out everything in such a short time.
BuildAPI was especially challenging at the beginning, but I pushed along albeit slowly to gain results and ultimately new knowledge. However, as I worked my way through and progressed, there was a satisfying sense of accomplishment from researching, learning and putting the knowledge to practical use.
Even while working on my INT620 website project using Perl and TT2, I often reflected on how our project can also be done in pylons since it encompassed similar processes as my BuildAPI project: querying databases, displaying/managing data and using a model like the MVC to separate the application code from business.
But I also believe I learned something much greater than learning the ropes on my project. And that is the value of the resources available - the large community of able-bodied and willingly helpful souls. SBR600 opened my eyes to the “community”.
What about my advice for those who plan on taking this course?
- Do it, take it
- Choose your project wisely and one that you will thoroughly enjoy
o Some projects involve scripting – such as learning Python (which you ultimately do by yourself)
- Get involved with the community – seek help, and do not be afraid to ask ANY question regardless of how “ridiculous” you may think it sounds
- Get INVOLVED with the COMMUNITY, success in the course, project and perhaps your career depend on it
Lastly, Cheers and Thanks to: Chris Tyler, Armen Zambrano, Mike Orr, fellow students, IRC users cthomas and aki, blogs, Mozilla Release Engineering, others and the Google group - Pylons-Discuss for all the help!
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