A New Beginning, Part 22

WEEK 22: Already?!

It kind of snuck up on me. I was so busy doing Katas from Interview Cake and finishing Firehose Lessons and getting things working on the Wookie chess app that I could hardly believe it when all at once we were having our last agile team meeting.

I’d solved some cool problems — like how to make castling work as soon as the person moving had let go of his king (Since this is the only time the king moves two spaces at once I told the program to check that the move was legal and then if it was, to magically move the rook into place as well). I’d figured out how to convert the information we were tracking into algebraic notation and print out the moves the players had made. And then suddenly there was no more time to do the other things I’d had in mind.

Our team leader, Jacob, told us that this is a common experience when it’s time to ship code: there often just isn’t time to complete all the functionality people had originally hoped or intended to include. But the most important parts were done, and we all felt good about what we’d been able to accomplish. You can check it out yourself here.

Then I had my last session with my mentor, going over some tricky challenges and some last minute job advice (find someone you know who can introduce you to a person working at a company you’re interested in!). And THEN it was time for…

Graduation!

No marching across a stage. No hearing a commencement address. In fact, I was concerned that there might be no external sign at all that I was graduating… until about 1:30 in the afternoon when I got a warm email from the folks at The Firehose Project with a wonderful attachment: My Certificate of SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE FIREHOSE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PROGRAM!

Kari and I had a great dinner at Hellas, a marvelous Greek Restaurant in Tarpon Springs to celebrate…

And THEN it was time for the really critical work to begin!

(More to come… !)