Mentoring #7

I am mentoring an Apprentice who has never done C# before, and this is his first programming job. So this is a diary of some-sort of his progression and my ability to mentor.

Managers love rearranging teams and sometimes I facepalm at how ridiculous it gets. When our teams were first formed, I was in Team A and my Apprentice was in Team B. I flagged this to my manager as a strange choice because it would make more sense if I was working alongside him and knew the work that he was assigned to do.

After several months, I got reassigned to Team B. A few months later, he has been reassigned to Team A but will work as a Software Tester. So now we are in opposite teams once more.

All this switching is just stupid, but I don’t object to him switching roles. Recently, he did say he understands C# a lot more now and can read more code that he could before, but he struggles to understand what our software currently does.

The annoying thing is, I did suggest to him early on that; temporarily, (or intermittently) switching role to a Software Tester may be beneficial to him. Testing the software will mean he learns the functionality of what it is supposed to do, he sees more of our process, and also understands how the Test Environments are deployed/configured etc. Our software is really complex so I felt his insistence to get stuck into the code was actually hindering him.

He actually sounded quite excited to try it now, and I felt that if he does enjoy it, it might suit his abilities more. If he doesn’t do well, then we may end up letting him go.

This is the thing, he has been here a few years and hasn’t really learnt anything, and when he does ask basic questions, I find myself telling him I had already gone through all this stuff before. I don’t expect him to retain everything I tell him, but I did emphasise there was a lot to learn, and this team is incredibly difficult so needs to put the effort in early on – which he didn’t do. Now Colin (who I have written about many times on the blog) has moved roles from Developer to Manager, Colin told me he is aware that there are several underperforming people, and that he is going to be looking to move them on; my apprentice is one of them.

Colin seemed to suggest that if he can’t complete work himself (either from a Development or Testing point of view), then he could be let go. A week later, my apprentice was asking questions from a Developer perspective and I asked what happened to the Testing work. He said something about “not wanting to be a Tester” and “didn’t want to get stuck doing that work”.

Not a good idea.

Showing he can do Testing would be much easier than trying to fix some difficult Bugs. Going against a manager’s idea when you are close to being let go is also playing with fire. Also, what happened to the enthusiasm he showed a week prior?

I’d also previously explained to him how there’s always times where Developers have to chip in and help Testers. Those that kick off a fuss or don’t contribute enough are always looked down upon since they are not “team players” and don’t show a “quality” mindset which everyone should show.

We will have to see what happens. I’ve only ever known people to be sacked for having major arguments with managers, or doing something really offensive. It’s a rare occurrence so I’d imagine we would just keep him around, even if he doesn’t contribute much.

Ukraine Cyber Attacks

Our security expert in the IT department made a security announcement last week:

“Due to the growing tensions in Ukraine, it is not surprising that the UK may be subjected to increased cyber-attacks”
Security Expert

When I started reading this, I’m thinking “why is it not surprising that we would have increased cyber-attacks?“; it is written like it is stating the obvious, but why are we under threat? My immediate thought is that Russians aren’t able to tell the difference between the UK and Ukraine. I mean, they do sound kinda similar.😁

So I read on, and I was a bit confused when the following paragraph goes on to say “whilst there is no specific current threat to UK organisations…“. I guess the keyword is “specific“, because much later in the post, he finally clarifies what he means. He was referring to the usual phishing attacks and donation scams. For example: emails asking for donations to help Ukraine, and you could be likely to click links and hand over cash for a worthy cause; but you will be handing money to criminals.

So it will be true that there’s more “cyber-attacks” across the world, so no idea why he mentioned the UK then had to clarify that it wasn’t specifically the UK in the very next paragraph.

He also wrote

“instructions have been issued to all areas of the business to bolster their cyber security measures”.
Security Expert

I find this a bit of a nonsense statement really; shouldn’t we already have max security? After all, just like he also states: “We take data security very seriously and it requires all of us to play our part.“

So are we at our most secure or not? It makes me think that we aren’t. Anyway, after instructing everyone to be suspicious of clicking links, he then provides some links for us to click to find out more.

Automation Plans

Back in June 2021, I wrote how we wanted to go 100% automation, and this was basically:

forcing the manual testers out of the company,
or to switch roles,
or learn automation.

There was a meeting to discuss how Testing could be completed for our next major release called “Software Developer assignment during the release regression window“

“30% of the regression pack is covered by automated tests. It takes around 9 days to run due to random failures”
Manager

They did want Developers to help run manual Regression Tests for the next release, but then going forward, they wanted Developers to help improve the current Automated Tests, and add more test coverage.

3 months later, a “Community of Practice” was set up. Not that important then.

I think the problem is that the Testers don’t have that much experience writing Automated tests, so they end up writing brittle and messy tests. Then, when they ask Developers to help out, we don’t have time since we are too busy fixing Bugs and working on new Projects.

7 months later, still not much improvement.

I knew the situation wouldn’t change. We keep highlighting this as a problem but then don’t have the skills and time to actually do anything about it. So all that really happens is a few of the experienced manual Testers leave because they think they aren’t needed/respected anymore (see intro paragraph). Then it takes longer to run the manual tests, and the desire for more Automation increases.

Windows 11 Initial Impressions

A few months ago, my laptop said Windows 11 was ready to install. Since it seemed it had already downloaded it, I decided to accept and schedule the install. The installation seemed to be going fine, but eventually rolled back and gave me a very generic looking error code.

After a quick Google for the error code, the suggestion was that there could be many reasons; but a common one was lack of free disc space. Now, I did only had 5GB after the download, but I would have thought that

A) it would check before saying it was “ready”
B) if it did fail because of lack of space – you would get a specific error.

So I freed up some space and looked for the option to try again. The option wasn’t there. I clicked around in the Windows Update menu. Nothing.

A month later, my laptop prompted me to install again, and this time it was successful.

I do wonder if there’s a rationale for certain changes. In Windows 8, they decided to remove the Start button and people demanded it back. Now in Windows 11, they are centring the task bar by default (you can change it if you wish). It will take a while to get used to, but maybe it’s easier to access rather than moving the mouse to the corner. One thing that is annoying though, is that the Power icon used to be directly above the Start button, so you could move your mouse slightly click, then move mouse slightly and click to Shutdown. Now they have moved the Power button to the other side. Is there rationale for that, or was it an oversight?

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Epic GameS [дип
Feedback НиЬ
Я) Туре here to seE — Windows 10. Super convenient to Shutdown

Windows 11: You’re gonna have to move aaaaaaaall the way to the right.

Pre Windows 10, I used to use ctrl+alt+del to access the Task Manager. Since then, I have adapted to just right click the Task bar then select Task Manager. They have removed it, but why? Now you just get “Taskbar settings”.

I always liked having the Icons with Text on the taskbar. Now you can only have icons. Why isn’t there an option in the settings? Surely that’s not an oversight, they have intentionally removed that. Why?

I intermittently remember that a cool way of minimising all windows is to grab one window and shake it with your mouse. This feature is off by default. You have to turn the feature on in the Settings menu. It is called “Title bar window shake”.

The biggest annoyance is that windows no longer maximise when you drag files to them on the taskbar. I used to have a program open like VLC Media Player, go grab an MP3, hover over VLC, it would maximise, allowing me to drop the file in. Now you have to have a program open but windowed; open file explorer, then drag the file in, then maximise the program if you wish. I don’t understand how that has been missed when developing, and going through all the stages of testing. I noticed it on Day 1.

Microsoft are boasting about a more consistent aesthetic, and a new sleeker look with rounded corners. Previous Operating Systems had a mix of aesthetics due to some dialogs being remnants of the older OS like XP, 7, 8 etc. Now everything looks the same. Or so they claim. They have definitely missed some, Device Manager being one example. This is annoying for those that like a certain colour scheme like a Dark Mode, then when opening Device Manager, it’s going to be White themed because it’s a legacy dialog.

A criticism other people have is that Microsoft are more pushy to use their ecosystem. It’s almost vital to have a Microsoft Account. Microsoft Edge is your default browser and cannot be uninstalled. It can be changed but the experience is a bit more clicky to change the Default App settings. Then there’s quite a few Diagnostic data collection options that are enabled by default.

I tend to use my laptop for simple stuff like for Web Browsing, and writing blogs. I have a PC for gaming. I have played a few games on Windows 11 though and it ran fine, and haven’t had any problems with incompatibility. I heard that the “drag and drop maximise window issue” is going to be fixed in an upcoming update. Hopefully, they can add the Task Manager option in, and give more customisation of the Taskbar in general.