CSC 321.01, Class 08: A static site

Overview

• Preliminaries
  • Notes and news
  • Upcoming work
  • Extra credit
  • Questions
• Notes on your HW
• Discussion: Making homework (more) reasonable
• Start next homework

Preliminaries

News and notes

• GitSwag!
• Mentor session 7-8 Sunday night
  • KY recommends that you start the homework in advance.
• Alumni mentors visit next Wednesday. Please try to clear lunch time, 4pm for their talk, (and 1pm, if possible).
• The homework has clearly been too long. I’ve allocated class time for discussing the issue(s).

Upcoming work

• Reading journal on user stories due Thursday at 9:00pm.
• Hartl 5 due Sunday at 10:30pm.
  • I need to find a three-hour block to write that assignment.

Good things to do (Academic/Artistic)

• CS extras Thursday: The evolution of CSC 151
• Rosenfield symposium this week
• MET opera on Saturday.
• Contra dance Friday at 8pm in Younker Lounge. Live music!
• Two cool shows in the Faulconer.
• Islam week events next week (details forthcoming)

Good things to do (Other)

Questions

Notes on your HW

Quick notes

• I generally write the homework assignments to get you to think about what you are doing and not just copy/paste/run.
• The LICENSE.md question was intended to be one of the “Did you read what you just copied?” questions.
  • The README.md file references LICENSE.md.
  • Doesn’t that mean you have a responsibility to create LICENSE.md even if Hartl doesn’t tell you to?
  • And is that the right README.md and LICENSE.md in any case?
  • At what point does ownership switch?

Refactoring

• My goal was to get you to think about opportunities to refactor.

Solution 0

class StaticPagesControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
  
  def setup
    @base_title = "Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App"
  end
  
  test "should get home" do
    get static_pages_home_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "Home | #{@base_title}"
  end

  test "should get help" do
    get static_pages_help_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "Help | #{@base_title}"
  end
  
  test "should get about" do
    get static_pages_about_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "About | #{@base_title}"
  end

end

Solution 1

class StaticPagesControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest

  def setup
    @base_title = "Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App"
  end
  
  def assert!(page)
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", page + " | #{@base_title}" 
  end
  
  test "should get root" do
    get root_url
    assert_response :success
  end

  test "should get home" do
    get static_pages_home_url
    assert!("Home")
  end

  test "should get help" do
    get static_pages_help_url
    assert!("Help")
  end

  test "should get about" do
    get static_pages_about_url
    assert!("About")
  end
end

Solution 2

I have written much DRY-er code on my c9 workspace

Solution 3

“As DRY as I could get it without getting into metaprogramming.”

class StaticPagesControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest

  def setup
    @base_title = "Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App"
  end

  def testResponse (url, title)
    get url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "#{title} | #{@base_title}"
  end

  test "should get root" do
    testResponse root_url, "Home"
  end

  # Redundant?
  test "should get home" do
    testResponse static_pages_home_url, "Home"
  end

  test "should get help" do
    testResponse static_pages_help_url, "Help"
  end

  test "should get about" do
    testResponse static_pages_about_url, "About"
  end
end

Solution 4

class StaticPagesControllerTest < ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest

  def setup
    @base_title = "Ruby on Rails Tutorial Sample App"
    @Home = "Home"
    @Help = "Help"
    @About = "About"
  end
  
  test "should get root" do
    get root_path
    assert_response :success
  end

  test "should get home" do
    get static_pages_home_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "#{@Home} | #{@base_title}"
    assert_match "#{@Home}", "#{@Home} | #{@base_title}"
  end

  test "should get help" do
    get static_pages_help_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "#{@Help} | #{@base_title}"
    assert_match "#{@Help}", "Help | #{@base_title}"

  end

  test "should get about" do
    get static_pages_about_url
    assert_response :success
    assert_select "title", "#{@About} | #{@base_title}"
    assert_match "#{@About}", "#{@About} | #{@base_title}"

  end
  
end

Solution 5

test “combined test” do
  [static_pages_home_url, static_pages_help_url, static_pages_about_url].each do |x|]
    get x
    assert_response :success
    assert_select “title”, /#{@base_title}/
  end
end

Discussion: Making homework (more) reasonable

Background

• When I first started assigning Hartl, I did not ask for writeups.
• My experience was that too many students just typed commands and didn’t really pay attention to what the steps meant or think more broadly about alternatives.
• A portion would also just give up when they hit a roadblock.
• And some wouldn’t do it at all.
• So that use of Hartl was a failure.
• But Hartl is much better than the code in our textbook, provided you pay active attention to what’s happening.
• So I added the questions to get you to pay closer attention.
• But “pay attention to Hartl” plus “answer Sam’s questions” appears to be taking too much time.

What should we do? (Think Pair Share)

• Will working in groups (already permitted) help?
  • Don’t force us to work in groups.
  • But allow those of us who want to work in groups
• How many questions is appropriate?
• Make less due
  • Sam will look at the schedule
  • Or at least less “show your work”
• Do we (our successors) need to do chapter 1?
• Stop reinforcing principles
• Do the weirder questions in class, rather than in homework
  • “Be prepared to discuss the following”
• Stretch out the next two homeworks!

Start next homework

Nope, there was not time.