Software Development Bootcamp

Software_Development_Bootcamp.md

Software Development Bootcamp

Overview

• This bootcamp is a guide for self-directed learning and critical thinking.
• It's not a step-by-step instruction course.
• Topics highlight key concepts and best practices.
• Take notes and explore topics further on your own.
• Focus on building skills for quality software development.
• Collaboration and teamwork are encouraged.
• Everyone brings unique experience, share and learn from each other.
• Ask questions and challenge ideas to deepen understanding.
• Apply the tools and principles to real project work.

Key Topics and Learning Outcomes

• Core development tools and environments
• Python fundamentals and best practices
• Version control with Git and collaborative workflows
• Application and API development (project structure, frameworks, REST, validation, authentication)
• Working with databases and ORMs
• Testing strategies and code quality (unit, integration, E2E, linting, static analysis)
• Deployment, containerization, and CI/CD pipelines
• Releasing to production, cloud deployment, and monitoring

I. Foundational Skills & Development Setup

• Python Fundamentals:
  • Quickly review core concepts
    • data structures?
    • object-oriented programming (OOP)?
    • modules
    • error handling
• Development Environment:
  • Virtual Environments: Best practices using venv for project isolation.
  • IDE Setup: Configuring a professional IDE such as VS Code or PyCharm with essential extensions (e.g., linters, debuggers).
  • Dependency Management: Utilizing pip, requirements.txt, pyproject.toml effectively.
• Version Control with Git:
  • Core Concepts: Branching, merging, pull requests, and handling merge conflicts.
  • Collaborative Workflows: Introduction to Gitflow or similar branching strategies.

II. Application & API Development

• Building Your First Application:
  • Project Structure: Organizing code into modules and packages for scalability and maintainability.
  • Web Frameworks:
    • Introduction to a primary framework like FastAPI (recommended for its modern features and performance)
    • Core concepts: routing, request handling, and response generation.
• API Development Best Practices:
  • RESTful Principles: Understanding HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and status codes.
  • [?]Data Validation: Using libraries like Pydantic for robust data validation and serialization.
  • [?]Authentication & Authorization: Implementing token-based security (e.g., JWT).

III. Testing & Code Quality

• The Testing Pyramid:
  • Unit Testing: Writing isolated tests for functions and classes with pytest.
  • Integration Testing: Testing the interaction between different components of the application.
  • End-to-End (E2E) Testing: Simulating user workflows.
• Code Quality & Style:
  • Linting: Enforcing a consistent code style with tools like Black and Flake8.
  • Static Analysis: Catching potential bugs before runtime with tools like mypy.

IV. Deployment & Production

• Containerization with Docker:
  • Creating Dockerfiles: Packaging the application and its dependencies into a container.
  • Docker Compose: Managing multi-container applications for local development.
• Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment (CI/CD):
  • Introduction to CI/CD: Automating the testing and deployment pipeline.
  • GitHub Actions: Building a simple pipeline to automatically run tests and build the Docker image on every push.
• Release to Production:
  • Deployment: Introduction to building containerized applications.
  • Environment Variables: Managing configuration for different environments (Development, UAT, Production).
  • Logging and Monitoring: Implementing basic logging to track application behaviour and diagnose issues in production.