Apprenticeship Week 2
I started my second week of the apprenticeship by looking at some functional testing. Specifically I was beginning to put together a 'regression' test pack for a client, identifying key success scenarios in their product and service that can be tested against before future releases are deployed to ensure the software does not 'regress'. Ideally, once this test pack has been compiled, it would be best to write scripts to automate what would be long manual testing process.
The other part of my week has been spent preparing to write a web application to assist in logging my (and future apprentices') progress. The idea is to create a system where it is easy to log activities that have been completed and represent the logged data in useful ways. Other features will be to provide a way to give feedback for continuous assessment throughout the apprenticeship, and a library for sharing useful articles/tutorials/tools. To get prepared for this, I have been studying Pluralsight courses on ASP.NET MVC and Web API.
To begin designing the structure of the site, I have been creating a mindmap (using XMind) and using a great, simple tool called Balsamiq Mockups to create wireframes like the one below.
These are both great ways to start thinking about the features for the site and the architecture that will be required to build it.
Finally, I have also this week attended the Microsoft TechDays Microsoft Azure Developer Camp (taken by cloud evangelist Steve Plank), where I was shown an introduction to cloud computing and how to do things like deploy an application to Azure, and create and utilise cloud storage and databases.
