Tic Tac Toe Again

It feels like a really long time since I worked on my Tic Tac Toe. I did a couple of days on it last week, but because I was just tidying things up and not really adding any new features, it didn’t really feel like I was working on it in the same way as I had been. I had the LunchMan break, and then last week spent quite a lot of my week helping Georgina with some SOLID principle examples, so it’s been a month since I was fully immersed in TTT.

Going back to it last week was interesting. I wanted to see how much I could understand just from my code, without the fresh memories of writing it. I was going into it with almost fresh eyes, and I actually really enjoyed it. I implemented some custom exceptions which I had to push up through my code for them to act as I wanted, so I ended up having to go through a few files, adding exceptions to the method signatures, and it felt ok. I think I understood most of what I had done and why I had done it. It’s not perfect, obviously, but I didn’t see anything that made me recoil in horror, so I was glad about that. I know it’s a little messy, and I’ve spent so much time recently really considering design options and the SOLID principles that I do want to go through my code with a toothcomb and fix all the problems, but I don’t think I’ll have time, because, but I hope that looking through my code and identifying the problems will help me identify them in my code in the future. For now though, it’s time to put my Tic Tac Toe on the web.

I’m looking forward to it. I think it’ll be good practice with Play and with web frameworks in general. I am sure I am going to make a lot of mistakes. I feel like I learnt so much through LunchMan it will be a really good oppertunity to test that learning a little, make sure it all sank in.

I am sure there are going to be some challanges. I don’t think I’ve got the seperation of my packages quite right, so I may end up needing to pull some classes from my console package into my core so that I can use them in my web version, but I think I will find that out whilst I go. There will no doubt be other issues that crop up, either from my code or from the framework, but I’m sure it will be ok…

It feels a little strange to be back in the Tic Tac Toe routine. After 3 weeks of LunchMan and a different week last week, the routine that was becoming familiar was broken. It was a nice break, I enjoyed it, and I’m glad I’m going back to Tic Tac Toe in a different way afterwards, but it is still settling back to the same routine, even though what I am doing is different. It feels nice and not nice at the same time.

In the consulting workshops we have learnt that spontaneity is a good thing. An openess to change is essential in being a good consultant. I like change, I like varying my routine, but I also enjoy routine. I like change, and I also like sameness. I don’t know what that says about me, I guess I feel that regardless of the situation, I just like getting on with the task at hand.

One of the things that was also mentioned in my IPM was the fact that, at some point, I will be done with Java. I’ve been so focussed on learning Java, trying to improve my knowledge and use of the language, getting my head round the Play framework, I’d almost forgotten that I was going to move on to another language. Again, it feels nice and not nice to know that I will be moving on. I’m getting comfortable with Java, but I’m also really looking forward to learning something new and seeing what I’ve learnt about general programming from learning Java. But that’s a few weeks off, so I’ll keep focus on Java, on Tic Tac Toe, and deal with whatever happens when it happens.