Joel’s Diary

What have I been doing?

So for those wondering: this is the executive summary of my final internship report, the full thing being 11+18 pages

This report covers my internship at JAARS, in Waxhaw, North Carolina. My project for the internship was to work with the team that works on “Translation Editor”, a program to input and edit scripture. The internship started off by writing a project plan, containing explanations of the process, the approach taken, products to be produced and a timeline for the different products. The team works with the Extreme Programming methodology, and has taken a year to refactor the code (refactoring is to review and improve code). The biggest change is this is an architecture change, where the old data layer is being replaced by new data objects, using the principles of “Domain Driven Design” (from the book by the same name by Eric Evans). Because of this, all the modules had to be rewritten or adjusted for this. Important in this process were pair programming and test driven development, which ensure that changes happened correctly and the complexity was kept at bay. In addition to an explanation of the project, the project plan also included a timeline to work on development tasks and produce three products. The development tasks happened in two distinct phases: work on refactoring and the new code, but also producing a bug fix release. In addition I was able to attend an internal “developers conference”. The three products produced were an implementation report, a design report and this final internship report.

The results of this internship can be seen in three different areas. Firstly, in the refactored code I was directly involved with about 30 tasks and in the bug-fix release I worked on fixing about 40 bugs. Secondly, I was able to develop my skills, especially in the areas of implementing code and self-discipline, but also in design aspects. The development of these skills is discussed in a separate reflective report which has been included with this report as an appendix (the report is in Dutch however). Thirdly, I have written an implementation report on a development task, a design report in English about a design issue, and also this final report. In these three areas I have achieved the goals as set in the project plan and therefore, at the end of this internship, I can look back on a productive, valuable and educational internship.