My journey of 2022 🧑💻👨💻 Dev Retro 2022
A journey of transitioning from JavaScript to TypeScript to learning testing library and becoming the star performing team member.
Challenges you faced
It was in January 2022 when I switched my job and started working with this new firm. And like every new job this one came with its own new challenges. Never before have I worked or integrated a testing library with my ReactJS web applications or used TypeScript. Though both of them were on my list and I wanted to learn and use them this project gave me the opportunity to put that plan into motion.
For me, learning TypeScript was a much easier job compared to learning Cypress. Though there were times when there was a lot of confusion but I got a hang of it pretty fast, I am not saying I have mastered it but learned enough that I can convert components into it.
The project used Test-driven development (TDD) where each component built or changes made required me to write test cases. Writing test cases was not only a task but also a responsibility. It meant that I was not just building the application and making changes but I was testing it at a specific standard.
Developers always test their changes, if someone is not they should start doing it right away as I learned this the hard way and covered this point later in this blog, but writing test cases meant that we were very solid that changes work and a bug-free. If somehow the application still has bugs or even worse if the application crashes you are in trouble. Hence, learning Cypress and implementing it was a bigger challenge.
Lessons learned
As always, in this journey, there were instances where I learned a lot of things, mostly from mistakes that could have been avoided quite easily. Call it anxiety or otherwise, I pushed the code without testing it thoroughly. It worked on my machine with the dummy data I had used for testing purposes but once the code was merged and tested with real data it crashed, even the tests were not covering all the scenarios, as a result, I got a call from my senior who was in a different timezone and had to sit together to sort that issue so that the PR could be merged and QA team can proceed with the work.
Though the clock is ticking and the sprint is about to end the urge to push untested code just to avoid a spillover could result in more work and delayed PR. Spending an extra hour trying to break your code is much better than 2 people working late at night to fix a problem that could have been easily avoided.
Accomplishments achieved
The biggest accomplishment achieved this year was becoming a member of the star-performer team. Almost all sprints completed on time, all task done and all deadlines met this was a joint effort of the whole team. We delivered and we delivered with quality.
Though there were mistakes, some silly some serious, but all were a great learning opportunity.