future stories for tic tac toe

New Stories for Iteration #5 and #6

Iteration #4 is not near its end, but Micah and I sat down today and created more stories for my Tic Tac Toe project. The stories are going to be focusing on...drum roll please...throwing my Tic Tac Toe engine on a web app! Cool! I asked Micah a lot of questions regarding the stories. For one, I'm not allowed to use any external gems, just standard Ruby libraries. So goodbye, Rails, Sinatra, Rack, yadda yadda. Fortunately, I have erb on my side. I'm not sure how valuable it is to have erb at this point, but I'm glad I have the option to use it. I'll also be able to use WEBrick, which is that HTTP web server people use to test their applications in a dev environment. I'm going to have to do some reading about cookies and really understand how web applications used to work.

UI Story

I continued working on the UI story. It's coming along and so far I was able to get the options scene working. I still need to add the custom listboxes for the options. One problem I encountered in Limelight is that it couldn't find the mongo gem.

[master][~/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby] limelight open .
["/Users/skim/.rvm/gems/jruby-1.5.1/gems/limelight-0.5.5-java/lib", "/Users/skim/.rvm/gems/jruby-1.5.1/gems/jruby-openssl-0.7/bin", "/Users/skim/.rvm/gems/jruby-1.5.1/gems/jruby-openssl-0.7/lib", "/Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8", "/Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/site_ruby/shared", "/Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/1.8", ".", "/Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/lib", "/Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/lib"]
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" /Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require': no such file to load -- mongo (LoadError)
    from /Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/lib/negamax_player.rb:9
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/lib/negamax_player.rb:31:in `require'
    from /Users/skim/.rvm/rubies/jruby-1.5.1/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/lib/player.rb:21:in `create'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/default_scene/players/default_scene.rb:63:in `create_players'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/default_scene/players/default_scene.rb:14:in `scene_opened'
    from /Users/skim/.rvm/gems/jruby-1.5.1/gems/limelight-0.5.5-java/lib/limelight/stage.rb:195:in `open'
    from /Users/skim/.rvm/gems/jruby-1.5.1/gems/limelight-0.5.5-java/lib/limelight/producer.rb:128:in `open_scene'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/options_scene/players/options_scene.rb:23:in `play_new_game'
    from (eval):1:in `instance_eval'
    from /Users/skim/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby/options_scene/players/button.rb:12:in `mouse_clicked'
    from :1
    ...internal jruby stack elided...

I had Micah come over to troubleshoot the problem and I found out that Limelight does not look at the system gems. Instead you'll need to pull in the external gems you want to use into your project similar to how Bundler works. By running this command, it will automagically pull in the gem:

[master][~/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby] limelight freeze mongo
    creating directory:  ./__resources
    creating directory:  ./__resources/gems
    creating directory:  ./__resources/gems/gems
    creating directory:  ./__resources/gems/gems/mongo-1.0.5
    unpacking gem:       ./__resources/gems/gems/mongo-1.0.5
    creating directory:  ./__resources/gems/specifications
    creating file:       ./__resources/gems/gems/mongo-1.0.5/limelight_init.rb

You'll need to do this for dependencies as well:

[master][~/local/git/tic_tac_toe_ruby] limelight freeze bson
    creating directory:  ./__resources/gems/gems/bson-1.0.4
    unpacking gem:       ./__resources/gems/gems/bson-1.0.4
    creating file:       ./__resources/gems/gems/bson-1.0.4/limelight_init.rb

I think in the future, Limelight will incorporate Bundler to handle external gems.

Apprenticeship Retrospective

It's amazing how fast time flies. I've been here for almost two months now, and it feels like I just started a couple of weeks ago. Micah put two columns on the whiteboard, "Good" and "Improve On". He and I both took turns writing things down on both columns. Overall, I believe I'm on the right track. To stress on what needs to improve, here is the list we wrote down:

• TDD
• story estimation
• continually read books
• focus/time box/pomodoro
• more pairing time
• wear all kinds of hats
• in-depth geekiness on current topics
• 0 point iteration
• meet commitments
• hobby project
• sustainable pace
• attend more user groups

As you may recall, one particular week, I came out of an iteration completing zero points. How can anyone do that? I need to practice estimating the stories better and give them points that allow me to work at a sustainable pace. I'm going to have to figure out how to work on 10 points a week, work on a hobby project (which I can easily pick from my long list), read a book, attend more user groups, and play the ukukele with my feet. Okay sans the last part. Did I tell you I love this apprenticeship program? No seriously, I'm learning so much, it's rewarding to learn from a group of passionate craftsmen. :)