Victor Smith's Blog

What I did today:

• I worked on a bug that was reopened. I worked with my teammate previously on it and sent it to QA to validate it. However they were still able to reproduce the bug, so I talked with my mentor to see what he thought. I knew when we “fixed” the bug the first time it was a bandaid fix, meaning it just covered up the issue, but didn’t really fix it. Anyway, we got down to the real issue and fixed that.

Highlights:

• I learned a little more about Java and the intricacies of the language on my spare time.

What I did today:

• I worked with Mark to figure out what would be the best solution for my proposed pull request for why empty details were showing when you would click on the source. We found that because the list of sources was having to reload/sync, in between the time the sync started and finished, if the user clicked on a source link, it would show up blank. We concluded that the best solution would be to just throw away the click and let the spinner spin as per usual.
• I was able to work also with Alan to figure out a very obscure bug with the History list (the list of persons you have visited recently). What was happening was: say you had a full, complete, synced history list, but then you turned on airplane mode, then tried to refresh that list; it would show up blank, other than your own record. I looked over the code where I suspected was causing the problem, but I couldn’t make any conclusions as to how it was returning a list of one person, instead of what was already in the cache! After some debugging with Alan, we were able to find out that the previous programmer (who wrote it) had made assumptions in one part of his code that this one method would always return a list, never null. But then everywhere else, he assumed just the opposite: always check for null. So there was one place where he had a single if statement where if the list was null it would do a certain operation. However, there was no else statement, so it could never get into that if statement! Anyway, we got it figured out.

Highlights:

• Quentin (my brother) called and proposed that I should make an app for him. I walked him through how time consuming that would be and tried to convince him to consider other options. We decided that a web app would be much more feasible and an overall better option for him.

What I did today:

• I worked on fixing a bug with updating the gender icon for when a parent is added.
• I worked on testing the new release with target SDK 25 on it; I specifically worked on verifying spouses/children and making sure there are no bugs.

Highlights:

• I had my one-on-one with Alan Smoot. We talked about what are good things to try/learn on Google days. I also asked him for suggestions for what some good habits/strategies for progressing while on this internship. He suggested that I make a list of Udacity courses(or things like that) and review that list with the other guys on the team and help me sort them from “most needed/profitable” to “least needed/profitable”.
• We had a quarterly devotional where Elder Ian S. Ardern spoke about baptisms for the dead. It was a very nice devotional.

What I did today:

• It was my first official “Google day”. That’s when each member of the team basically gets to learn/do whatever they want, so as to stimulate learning and growth and possible future benefits to the company. The more engineers know and are aware of what’s going on outside the company, the better.
• I worked on Firebase logging in with different providers, e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.
• I started learning about Kotlin!

Highlights:

• I got a new keyboard and mouse!

What I did today:

• I reported a few bugs concerning some UI stuff, then promptly got to fix them.
• Alan suggested that I work on a swipe-to-refresh problem that was happening in the Memories app. I was able to fix it relatively without too many problems.

Highlights:

• It’s Friday!
• I ate at the Lion House Pantry and had pulled pork. Yum!

What I did today:

• I found a kinda-major bug with regards to switching over to target-SDK 25. Whenever the user would access/change files (using camera, saving files, etc) the app would crash on account of a new check in Android. It checks to see if you’re using the file:// scheme and requires you to use the content:// scheme.

Highlights:

• I had my one-on-one with Alan Smoot, my manager. It was great to be able to talk with him. It was about a 30 min meeting, where I talked about whatever I wanted for 15mins then he would use the remaining 15mins to talk to me about what he would like from me and managerial stuff like that.

What I did today:

• Worked on failed-binder issues with the other guys.
  • I focused on the EditNoteActivity/Fragment
• Alan clarified other procedural things I need to do when I put in a pull request/tackle a project.

Highlights:

• We had a meeting with us Android guys in order to plan/see where we’re at with the failed-binder/SDK 25 stuff.
• Nearer to the end of the day, Alan and I were talking about my recent pull request, because the other Android guy (Douglas, who’s down in Orem) was working on the parent class of the EditNoteActivity/Fragment I was working on. We decided to have me hold off on what I was doing so that I can adapt to what Douglas was working on.

May the 4th be with you!

What I did today:

• Finished up Lesson 9 and started on Lesson 10 of the Udacity course.
• Did my 2nd official pull request. I made it so an orange temple badge would appear on the Person detail page to show that that person needs more information in order to do ordinances. The needed code was pretty much already there, so I just connected it together.

Highlights:

• The 4th floor had a party: “May the 4th be with you”. They served hotdogs, chips, cookies, etc. and we did Star Wars bingo.
• I got a new FamilySearch T-shirt and my desk nameplate.

What I did today:

• I finished the Udacity Course! Yay!
• Alan approved my Pull Request for the orange badge.
• I approved Paul’s test plan for the story I worked on.

Highlights:

• Spencer called and I talked to him and Alice about his job and how I’m doing.
• Mark helped me understand the history behind why they’re not using the explicit data binding feature in the app. (Because these reasons: Jack&Jill was unreliable and was buggy with that particular feature,  no real big benefit from switching over)

What I did today:

• Completed section 5-8 (almost 9) of the Android Developer’s Course on Udacity.
• Arranged with Mentor what we’re going to plan for tomorrow.

Highlights:

• I learned about ContentProviders!
• I saw L. Whitney Clayton in the elevator, he said “Hi” to me !! ( I had to get out right then though…)