Proxy problem

8th Light Apprenticeship - Day 28

Yesterday, I got three loops down to two. This morning, on the train to the client, in about 10 seconds, I managed to reduce the loops down to one.

Originally, because the Board is required when reprompting the user for a valid move, I was thinking it didn’t fit into the general solution. However I realised if I created a Function, to pass into the general solution, I could still reference the board without changing the contract with the method.

It’s funny how your subconscious keeps on tackling problems when you don’t even realise.

The rest of the day was spent on client site, helping a group of graduate developers get their new project off the ground. Upon arrival we got a brief overview of the assignment, which sounds very ambitious given the groups experience level, and the aggressive timelines, not to mention all the different technologies and concepts involved - Java, Gradle, TomCat, Databases, CSS, HTML, Servlets…

The group had broken down their user stories into tasks, and had assigned pairs. After a quick group discussion they mentioned they were struggling with git setup, gradle builds and testing servlets, so we all split up to help tackle the different problems. As I have used gradle before I could provide assistance and take one of the graduates through a build.gradle file, which we tested with a simple HelloWorld test.

This was done by lunch, so after eating we turned our attention to the gradle wrapper. This allows other developers who clone the code, to build it through gradle without having to download and install gradle on their machines. Under the hood, the first time you build using the wrapper, gradle will go out to the internet to download the appropriate gradle version. The issue we came across is that the client has a proxy blocking the gradle site.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to work around the proxy using cntml There was various configuration to update both in cntml and some custom gradle.properties to update. Just as I was leaving the proxy started working (once the correct password had been generated by the user) so we left on a high note. It will be interesting to see what new problems they will have on Wednesday!