Ridiculous Donkey

Mobile Makers Week 5 — Parse, Agile and Insta

Last week was the last week for full “Hackwich” lessons. We are now transitioning from regimented lessons and set challenges every day to working on longer projects and applying agile development processes. There seems to be a different feel around it since everyone is getting geared for the last three weeks of when we are working on our own projects.

Our initial dip into Agile methodology seemed to be very good considering I haven’t really worked using real Agile from a starting stage. I had one experience as a CRM software consultant (I previously was a Siebel Order Management Product Specialist) where they applied Agile. I didn’t really get it, to be honest. So this experience for me was really great and I think I actually understand the fundamentals and why they work the way they do.

Most of my previous project work was purely waterfall. They were mostly massive multi million dollar projects at long established telcos. The majority of them did not complete. In my new career in mobile development, I’m looking forward to Agile now.

This week we were given quick lessons on Parse, which is amazing. Back end as a service. No DB set up. Interactive table / column creation and relationships on the fly. Awesome documentation. Great web interface. For free. It’s ridonkulous, which means “ridiculous donkey” (from Parks n Rec). Parse is the bomb, even though FB bought them. Hope it stays the same for now.

Our task this week is to create a version of Instagram using Agile methodology in small teams. I’m paired with an awesome developer who is also my final project partner. I think we have a very good rapport going and things are starting to click, even in these first couple days.

Tomorrow we demo our Instagram and then I think we pitch our ideas. We’ll have to finalize which idea we are going to go with today. Yikes!

The mad pace continues… ☺