Most universities only teach the basics of coding, not the software engineering knowledge required to actually build the systems in industry. If you have learned basics of programming, you are on a level playing field with most new grads. It doesn't take much learning to teach yourself some basic software engineering concepts and implement an example project to stand out significantly when looking for that first job.

Getting Your First Software Engineering Job

software-engineering-first-job

This was written for the benefit of anyone travelling to Turkey to get around UK/Schengen travel restrictions into the US.&nbsp;
Instant Regrets
I came back to Scotland in early March for a wedding and got stuck here due to the US travel ban on non-immigrants present in UK/Ireland/Schengen in the last 14 days. Despite living and working in Boston MA on an H-1B, I was essentially locked out as it’s a non-immigrant visa. I’m fortunate enough to work remote, so for the last 4 months I’ve straddled both Boston and Edinburgh rents which naturally isn’t pretty on the old bank account. &nbsp;
Non Immigrant Visas Executive Order
I hawkishly followed any details on Donald’s non-immigrant ban for about 2 months. There was chatter from immigration lawyers that any potential ban could include existing visas. This could’ve resulted in me being banned from the US until 2021. I was naturally very hesitant to travel to Mexico - the only country that were open at the time - on the off chance my visa class would be unilaterally banned while I was there.&nbsp;
Getting out of Schengen&nbsp;
When it was announced the Visa ban only included new non-immigrant visas, I immediately bought a flight to Istanbul. Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania & Serbia were all options, but most were a nightmare to get to from Edinburgh. To Boston without a Schengen layover, I’d likely had to have flown via Istanbul anyway. I decided this was safer than Mexico Covid wise. A couple of Caribbean countries like Aruba were given some thought, but Istanbul was just easier logistically and financially.
Edinburgh Airport
Edinburgh Airport was dead. There was a fairly busy flight to Poland, but beyond that, it was a ghost town. No restaurants were open but WHSmith was, so thank goodness for that. 
British Airways - Edinburgh (EDI) to London (LHR)&nbsp;&nbsp;- 3rd July
British Airways scrapped priority boarding and filled from the back of the plane in 3 groupings. Nobody checked my ID for the domestic flight and all tickets where self scanned.&nbsp;
The flight was fairly quiet. I had the 3 chairs to myself. Photo above was of this flight.
They gave us a bag with crisps and a bottle of water and pretzels. 
We emptied out in rows of 5. Everyone was super compliant. Was all round pretty good in terms of social distancing.&nbsp;
Heathrow Airport&nbsp; 
Heathrow was much busier. I would say it was actually pretty much like normal in terms of people. There were NO restaurants open and the only place that served food was Leon, a chicken and rice box&nbsp;takeaway. The queue was naturally enormous, wrapping around the corner. It took about 40 minutes in all and people actually social distanced in it.&nbsp;
At the terminal, they made sure my passport name matched my ticket but didn't ask to see my face under the mask. First time I've had nobody remark about how much I've grown up since my passport photo.
Turkish Airlines - London (LHR) to Istanbul (IST)&nbsp;-&nbsp;3rd July
So Turkish Airlines have implemented this policy without it being mentioned in their check-in process which is that they're not using the overhead bins. At the terminal, they saw my carry on and told me to check it with them there for free.&nbsp;
When you board the plane they give you a the party bag of the future; hand sanitiser, 2 surgical masks and 2 antibacterial wipes.
As I took my seat, it dawned on me that the flight was in fact full. It also became very apparent that nobody really gave a shit about social distancing. I was in amongst a group of Russians dispersed throughout different rows who would be talking to the rows&nbsp; behind and infront of them,&nbsp;often with their masks off as they were also eating.
A bag of food was given; a sandwich with cheese with a couple of peppers on it. Things were specified like "don’t remove your mask if someone in your row has theirs removed while eating", but nobody cared about this as they hammered into their marble cake.
They also handed out a form to fill in. They give out pens, but I'd recommend bringing one for obvious reasons. It's pretty basic stuff; literally a contact form for them to call you if the whole flight got infected. Have your Turkish address ready and the flight details. They want to know what countries you've been in during the last 14 days and if you've had a fever or a cough.&nbsp;
The best part though was when we landed. They announced over the intercom that we would be disembarked by calling out rows.&nbsp;As&nbsp;soon as the no seatbelts sign was switched off though, everyone just got up and scrambled for the door. Was an absolute shitshow. They didn’t even announce rows despite saying they’d do that.
Overall, I'd say they like they were happy to say stuff and handout those bags, but none of the social distancing stuff is enforced and the bulk of passengers despite wearing masks, give zero shits. 
Istanbul Airport (arrival)
This airport was massive and pretty empty. There was no social distancing in the border queue despite big circles being drawn on he ground. I kept my distance from the person in front, but the person behind me was basically trying to grind during whole ordeal (about 15 mins in total). It shaved off a couple of milliseconds off their waiting I'm sure. 
When I arrived at passport control, the border guard didn’t even ask me anything. Just took passport and form gave me a stamp. Didn't even ask for me to pull my mask down.&nbsp;Second time I've had nobody remark about how much I've grown up since my passport photo.
I opted for a the Shuttle buss over a taxi because I live dangerously and am cheap. My thought process was if it looked super busy, I'd bail and get a taxi instead. It was 25 TL and you can buy it in advance on here - <a href="https://hava.ist/en">https://hava.ist/en</a>. You can get their app and pay using the QR code.&nbsp;
The bus was pretty quiet (I had a whole row) but I’d guess they’d fill it if they could. There's ATMs in the floor above the bus stand if you need cash for a taxi.&nbsp;
Airbnb
I arrived finally at the airbnb about 2AM. Host insisted on showing me around first. I was so burned out, I relented. He told me he had forgot English because it's been 4 months since they had any tourists. I've never felt so wanted by anyone.&nbsp;
14 Day Quarantine 
Istanbul was terrific; most people wearing masks and most things were open. I probably did more tourist things than I should’ve given the pandemic, but things were fairly quiet and there very few times I was unable to social distance. A lot of the restaurants were empty and actually had outdoor seating. I’d highly recommend as a place to quarantine. In the end ended up buying a 26 hour flight to Boston via Doha, Qatar with a nice 8 hour layover.
Istanbul Airport (departure)
I couldn’t check in online as they couldn’t pull up an ESTA on my passport number (I don’t need one because I have an actual visa) so went to the airport via the “Havaist” bus. I went around midday and the bus was pretty empty. The airport is huge and fairly sparse. In the queue asked if I was going to US and put me in a separate queue. Was asked if what countries I’d spent the last 14 days in and they inspected my Turkey passport stamp before handing me my boarding passes. There were very few restaurants open after security. The ones that were were always quite expensive ($20+ for something equivalent to McDonalds). 
Qatar Airways - Istanbul (IST) to Doha (DOH) - 19th July
Just prior to boarding they handed everyone a face visor and said that it and the mask are required for the flight. On the flight a lot of people didn’t comply, especially with the visor part. The flight was pretty empty and fairly uneventful.
Doha Airport (layover) 
I arrived in Doha for an 8 hour layover. You have to go through security again for the transit. I found an area however that was completely deserted and just stayed there the whole time. I had to go through security again right before the Boston flight board. This means you can’t take water onto the flight with you which is wild. It was again a flight in which the mask and face visor was compulsory.&nbsp;
Qatar Airways - Doha (DOH) - Boston&nbsp;(BOS) - 20th July
The Boston flight was pretty dead. I had a whole row to myself to sleep. Right before we landed they handed out the below health declaration form.&nbsp;
<figure><img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/22024cd5-a838-4a33-bec9-bd5c220b6acd.jpg" data-image="22024cd5-a838-4a33-bec9-bd5c220b6acd.jpg"></figure>
US Immigration - 20th July
Immigration at Boston was surprising easy also. Had to pull down the mask and visor for the photo and still do the fingerprint scan (didn’t look like they were cleaning it between people so bring hand sanitiser). The only question he asked was “You’re staying at this address yeah?”. Nobody looked at my health declaration form.&nbsp;
I Ubered home which was obviously a masked affair and got in to my apartment. After nearly 5 months I finally made it back!&nbsp;

I got stuck in Scotland when the US UK/Ireland/Schengen travel ban was initiated, so went to Istanbul for 14 days peak Corona.

US Travel Ban via Istanbul

us-travel-ban

So I’m stuck reflecting on what I’ve achieved these past 10 weeks. Yes, I’ve heavily inflated US imports of
McVities Digestives, discovered that the main purpose of the Freedom Trail is actually a path you can follow
after a big night to eventually end up at a T station, all while “finding myself” without having to go to South
America. Such deep questions as “what have you really learned?”, I feel are going to make themselves
evident over the months and years to come.

 

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The Old State House, inspired by a level from Assassin’s Creed 3 

These last three weeks started with the boys going to get our Social Security numbers, a card we apparently
need to file a tax return for zero dollars, zero cents to keep CIEE, our visa sponsor happy. Unprecedented
levels of chat occurred with Chi, the guy at the Social Security Administration in Dorchester. So much was the
patter that he took our number from the official government document and phoned us the weekend after,
asking to “hang out” and how he could use his “connections” to help get us green cards. Not sure if he was
expecting favours in return, but one certainly has to appreciate the enthusiasm of the American public sector.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/d185f547-5711-4e8a-83ba-0101ebbe20d8.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

Dorchester, where school buses go to die 

A lot of my time at NEHGS recently has been devoted to creating technical documentation for each one of the
systems which support the site. This documentation was passed onto the new vendors that are in charge of
learning and maintaining the back end of the site. Aside from documentation, I have been regression testing
the controller C# code I wrote last time regarding the displaying of all the NEHGS articles, I pulled from their
previous site. This has recently been pushed to the public version of the site and can be seen here
(http://www.americanancestors.org/browse/articles).

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/a91ab38e-0d43-43bf-8e70-80c4c856cd72.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

Python last time, C# this time. You lot are spoiled. 

Another feature I added to the NEHGS’ site over the past couple of weeks was a site wide google search. One
can now select “site” on the top search bar and conduct a search across all pages within
AmericanAncestors.org (http://americanancestors.org). This should’ve been a case of copy and pasting a
couple of HTML tags and a bit of Javascript, but Ektron, the Content Management System strips out all
javascript, so I had to again resort putting it into a view on the backend of the site and bringing it into Ektron
with an AJAX call because I just can’t get enough of that old asp.NET (http://asp.net) MVC framework.

The quality of patter in our week was significantly increased when Sandy Kennedy, Saltire’s CEO came by. We
were treated to a couple of nights fine dining. The first was with Gerald Chan, named “Boston’s Invisible
Billionaire” by The Boston Globe. The restaurant “Night Market”, owned by his son, specialised in Asian street
food. We ate food ranging from fried squid to daikon chips while all the time being peer pressured by Gerald
into drinking sake watermelon slushies. The second meal was everyone that was involved with The Saltire
Foundation in Boston and representatives from each host company. It was fantastic to finally sit down and
talk with everyone involved.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/fa9ec349-bf4a-4398-bb58-2a4ad3594ba6.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

some saltire scholars in boston 

Whilst not taking midnight strolls through The Fens or being served beers by our boy Ronnie at UNO, I had
my first American bowling experience. Immediately ID’d at the door, I then descended into some dark
passageway where I eventually came out straight out onto the set at the start of Boogie Nights. After an
absolute trouncing at bowling, I was then asked if we wanted “some beers” which is American for 32 oz
glasses, a vat of liquid I was unable to lift with my wee arms after all those heavy bowling balls.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/82923612-2094-4652-86c5-82feef0c9925.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

ain’t no party like an S-Club party 

While The Other Guys shot some hoop in the courts, I went to the Harpoon Brewery. The tour sees you into
the giant tanks where they make the ale and showing you what raw ingredients go into that sweet liquid with a
fruity note that lingers on the tongue. They also make pretzels with all the left over yeast which they cover in
sugar and make you dip in gravy. Americans.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/32c4b38b-b2b5-437d-90a4-f77f9882024b.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

One before I got kicked out for taking the “free samples” too far

On our final weekend, we moved into the hotel from Northeastern, leaving behind no microwave because it
never came with one. If there was any chat on the door with the stone men, I’d be missing it right now, but
there wasn’t, so I’m not. The boys then proceeded to get violently burned on Gloucester’s sandy beaches
after we decided not to trespass at a quarry near Rockport after failing to convince the nasty man that The
Country Code was a thing here too.

On the Tuesday before my departure, I was able to go on the yearly company trip, a boat along the Charles
River - something Captain John, a legend among men, gave me, 3 beers in, a wee shot of - before ending up
at “Tams”, voted the best dive bar in Boston. One or two Bud Lights were had, but given that we all had work
the next day, everyone was most definitely finished by 9 and in bed, ready for a big day at work.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/1967a381-3077-4641-b66e-a0a7d6966fd6.jpg" style="width: 100%; width: 100%;">

posin' with the pru 

As the last Friday approached, I was definitely hit by the reality that I was about to leave. 10 weeks is too long
to feel like a holiday; one settles in and this becomes your reality for the short time that you’re there. To be
pulled out of it, leaving behind friends, colleagues and those you’ve been living with, definitely brings a wee
tear to your eye. The experiences I’ve had whilst in the States and working with NEHGS have truly been some
of the best. Going to miss not tying anymore irrelevant Mark Wahlberg movies into my blogs.

Thank you NEHGS, Saltire and Helen for such a smashing summer. Mingles out.

Part 5 of 5 blogs recounting my 2015 summer internship in Boston with The New England Historic Genealogical Society which was sponsored by The Saltire Foundation.

Saltire Foundation Blog #5: Boogie Nights

saltire-boogie-nights

During the week, we partook in our accommodation, Northeastern University’s “trivia night”, an American
University’s ice breaker equivalent to a pub crawl, without the pub or the crawl. It was here we met all the
other interns by forming our own Saltire team and not speaking to any other interns. We took a fair bashing
due to the heavy bias on American Questions. Entertained them all with the word “fortnight” and was in bed
by 8pm. Big night in America.

Using my name badge from work, a magical card which gets myself and a guest into all of the cultural
institutions of New England through some reciprocity agreement nobody else has ever heard of, I was able to
argue my way into the Aquarium for free to see all the fishes and get offered $30 for a photo which is already
printed out before you decide if you want it or not.

 

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Chelsea, a native of this foreign land, and I with rare micro penguins. 

They do however give you a code which enables you to buy it digitally online, again for 30 dolla dolla bills. One can
however, if they are so inclined, take the image ID from the thumbnail URL and rake about in their site’s root
directory for a PHP script which displays the full thing for free, allowing you to get it on Faceyb to prove the
day actually happened to all your internet pals. Here's a question. Is it morally wrong to exploit a company
with an incompetent website for your own $30 gain? Perhaps. Here’s another question. Do I give a fuck?

We also went on the famous Boston “Duck Tour” on the Sunday, the very amphibious vehicle I failed to flash
in my previous blog. Operated by a gentleman that would’ve fitted in too well with the staff at the BBC in the
1970s, we boarded the Duck “Fenway Fanny”, and the rest was history.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/1d65464a-c822-48bc-b02f-be4886d647b8.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

The bairns all got a shot, so naturally, I got one too. 

At NEHGS, we had another intern for a day. The technician brought in his son for a bit of chat, so we had a
three hour lunch in Five Guys where we discussed the finer details of chatting up the American ladies. The
trick, he told me, is to complement them on their looks and then just act cool and wait for them to make the
move. With my my fill of “dating” advice from a 16 year old, I crawled back to my computer science - the only
lady I’ll ever need (haha.)- to investigate further how to dynamically create webpages within a CMS with its
illusive server side C# code.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/b309d296-e13d-437b-a1ce-4126401b2602.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

$12 a pizza slice. 

Just last weekend, we hired a car and visited Six Flags New England, an amusement park near Connecticut,
where I unintentionally ruptured all of my internal organs on “The Goliath”, before wetting my trunks on a
vertical flume with pneumatic floor. The boys barely made it to the cinema the next day. Southpaw with big
Jake. Almost as good as The Fighter with #markymark.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/b3f718d4-513f-42f1-ace8-b366873501be.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

Some Python scraping I did before breakfast. 

As I worked on the dynamically created pages on NEHGS’ site, I came to realise that coding 9-5 straight
everyday isn’t tenable in the long term. The work itself however, at the time is fantastic; you get in a flow state
and time zips by. I didn’t realise how mentally exhausting it was until my IQ dropped to that of a lettuce when I
got home. I’m going to try and break up my workload throughout the day, attending more of the meetings I
would normally miss because I was too wired to notice everyone left for the
boardroom.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/dd98f7bb-4137-4aef-86d1-c60bf7969dbf.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

So red and ominous. 

This last weekend, the Saltire Boys did a bit of #givingback, raising a wee bit of money for The Saltire
Foundation, volunteering at, and doing, “The Wipeout Run”. The volunteering consisted mainly of packing
away people’s phones, IDs and handguns so they didn’t get them pinched or soaked on the run. As soon as
the run started, a pace not seen since 4th year in high school, it inevitably evolved into a leisurely stroll. We
then got hit by balls. Balls in the face from every angle. Even big Coyle’s Saltire t-shirt was lost to the balls. So
many balls.

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/5eabbcfd-39e3-448b-8811-f8cdffa84108.JPG" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

We’re fae Scotland. We’ll set aboot ye.

Part 4 of 5 blogs recounting my 2015 summer internship in Boston with The New England Historic Genealogical Society which was sponsored by The Saltire Foundation.

Saltire Foundation Blog #4: The Fighter

saltire-the-fighter

On our big Friday off, the quiet before the storm of the fourth, The Saltire Boys decided to get in a wee boat
and paddle around the Charles River. It was no River Fourth, but I got to FaceTime my mammy in open water
thanks to the 50 quid 4G, a quality of cellular signal never before seen in the town of South Queensferry.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/c3a84042-93fa-4f61-95d2-042d421b3f8f.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

Takes Pain & Gain to get an arm that big 

The morning of the fourth was fresh. The tartan skirt was put on with the sneaks for ease of amble and the
journey to Allston for a farmers market which wasn’t actually there commenced. After a sugary pancake
dusted with some more sugar finished by syrup and a little bit of strawberry for lunch, the Saltire Boys with
only 33% of the boys went clothes shopping for some Independence kit. Unable to find any gear with
Salmond’s face, I opted for the more conventional US flag t-shirt with nae sleves approach. Big night.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/280d1840-3128-43d2-a5c2-fae9a5ed88dd.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

boys in bahston. 

The following day, we went to an outdoor pool for some socially acceptable taps aff. Burnt, after floating in a
chlorineless pool crammed full of children with weak bladders, I got my $5 mango juice and we walked very
slowly home. Tough, tough weekend. 
	

Over the last fortnight with NEHGS, my most significant contributions to their site has been the transferring of
content from their previous site to their current one. This generally would entail a copious amount of copy
pasting, but in an effort to use a little bit of my unay education, I wrote a piece of code to pull all the content
from the old website and automatically put it in lots of pretty responsive tables. For the sake of simplicity, I will
simply refer to it as “The Algorithm” from here on in. Still recovering from the Fried Chicken with Waffles and
Maple syrup from the previous night, The Algorithm was fully initiated and the HTML was procedurally
generated and stuck into it’s own section of the site which may be seen here
(
	<a href="http://www.americanancestors.org/">http://www.americanancestors.org/</a>browse/town-guides/).

Every year in Boston, The Highland Street Foundation sponsors “Free Fun Friday” at NEHGS, which is where
the company opens it’s door to the public. Dressed in the national garb, I stood outside, attempting to woo
passers by into the door with a bit of family history patter. In an effort to avoid scaring the children, I turned
down a $1 bet to flash a Duck Tour, an amphibious vehicle full of tourists that would have previously been
used to invade Normandy.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/8c511402-3941-46ba-b207-49eef01ba54a.jpg" style="width: 75%; height: 75%; display: block; margin: auto;" alt="">

They deleted a comment about my legs which was deemed "inappropriate"
(https://www.facebook.com/nehgs/posts/10153507376774451) 
	

I’ve also been very fortunate to have lunch with both Helen Sayles and Katie Michaels of the Saltire
Foundation. Helen was very kind to get us all Red Sox tickets against the New York Yankies. We joined in on
all the songs and pretended to understand what was going on. Was wonderful to see such a family friendly
atmosphere devoid of any sectarian chanting.

 

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Quality seats #yankiessuck 

A day to the beach was also had. Myself, fuelled by McDonalds for breakfast, the resultant of a late evening of
light drinks and dancing in Boston’s self proclaimed “The Greatest Bar”, The Saltire Boys got the Commuter
rail to Manchester by The Sea. It was here we met Mike, a well traveled gentlemen and a fan of Trainspotting. Mike had dabbled in hard drugs in his youth, but now spent his time enjoying the sandy beaches of New
England. Liv also stole a ball from a child and we had a big game of passy.

 

<img src="https://download.mingl.es/media/blog/redactor/cafd86f1-047c-40ca-9aa0-a3f14b66c010.jpg" style="width: 100%; height: 100%;">

guid view.

At work, I’ve been working on what we’ll call for the sake of consistently shocking chat, “The Algorithm 2.0”.
“2.0”, over just “2”, because it looks more computer sciency. This little Python script strips all of the
genealogical article links from a webpage and iterates through them, pulling all the relevant content from each
page and storing it in a dictionary, a data structure from which all the HTML can be dynamically generated so
I don't actually have to look at any of the 500 or so articles individually. I'm sure you'll get a wee sneak peak
next time.

Part 3 of 5 blogs recounting my 2015 summer internship in Boston with The New England Historic Genealogical Society which was sponsored by The Saltire Foundation.

Saltire Foundation Blog #3: Pain & Gain

saltire-pain-and-gain

So, we’re two weeks in and I’ve currently managed to memorise a whole four street names. So bad was my
navigation in the first week, I had to invest in a 4G plan, the cheapest of which cost me close to $50.
Justifiable not only for efficient travelling, but, more importantly enabling some serious Tindering on the go.
The Truth About Charlie Cards, Boston’s equivalent to an Oyster Card, is that more often that not, it’s
completely unneeded. One is able to walk easily to everywhere they’d need to go in the city. I still don’t
understand how the roads work, but have taken nicely to Jaywalking since I haven’t seen anyone arrested for
doing it yet.

One of the common points I’d heard others talk about regarding Americans is how ready they are to talk
about how they identify as Irish or Scottish due to an ancestor in the late 1700s. This, as you can imagine is
rife at a company dealing in family history, but the depth of knowledge people have about their own and
other’s ancestry is truly astounding. People have been able to tie their ancestry into nobles and from that tie
into a royal line, which is basically guaranteed to link you into some huge names like big Robert the Bruce or
William The Conqueror.

 

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At NEHGS, you can even eat your pieces in the little garden 

The last fortnight with NEHGS has been amazing. I’ve had an extremely varied workload and everyone there
has made sure the technical department has got plenty to do. The department I work in predominantly deals
with outputting digital content on the site, but has strong links with other departments, sharing a lot of the
workload on different projects. The work they had me doing in the first week was on the front end of the site,
writing and uploading HTML forms through their content management systems (CMS), Ektron. The website
utilises a responsive design framework called Bootstrap which enables the site to work well across all
devices, regardless of their screen size. Much of the site’s users are people who are retired, so any changes to
the site in terms of design, generally have to be incremental and all information has to be easily accessible.

Over lunch, I get to explore both Newbury and Boylston Street (yes, 50% of my street repertoire). Newbury,
the street NEHGS is situated on is composed of 19th century brownstones, featuring a lot of very high end
shops, restaurants and infinite sushi. The cupcake shop next to my work also has a daily buzzword, posted to
Twitter every morning, which results in a free cupcake. Boylston generally has a lot more food places and as
well as some department stores. Each one was scoured significantly for a duvet, which, apparently they don’t
use in America. I did however find a Red Sox snapback to fit in with the local rogues.

 

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Pre coffee snap with the big man 

The U.S. also has a distinct lack of kettles for making cups of tea. One has to resort to the caffeine laced
English Breakfast capsules for coffee machines. My 150 of the very finest Scottish Breakfast teabags were a
waste of luggage space. I considered throwing them all in the harbour, but some disgruntled locals apparently
already did that ages ago. We went to see Jurassic World in one of the evenings too. Back home, the cinema
is a far more passive experience, one sits down, watches the film and goes home. Here however, people are
shouting at the screen, cheering while knocking back their fried chicken, all while the clearly well informed
gentleman next to me, convinced his date that dinosaurs did in fact not exist and were a conspiracy cooked
up by the CIA. 
	

 

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It is what it is

I’m currently working on an audit which encapsulates a high level view of the company’s digital properties.
The company is changing web content vendor and the current one has currently left a significant lack of
documentation on both internal workings of the system and how staff interact with the system. This has
allowed me to shadow team members, getting to grips with how they do things manually with the system,
giving me a list of functional requirements which can be implemented to enable more automation and ensure
better software interaction between systems. On the Friday, I ended up at a Street Party in Cambridge with
some of the girls from work. It was like being in a massive outdoor rave but there was kids running around
with lightsabers. This was an experience you just wouldn’t get back home. Someone would’ve died from a
dodgy swedger several years back and the event would’ve been disallowed thereafter.

 

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Basically Cav on a Thursday night

The day after was a distinctly slow start if I can remember correctly. After a wee rest on the other two boys
bedroom floor, the Saltire Boys went to back to what remained of Cambridge. Fresh as we’d ever been, we
explored Harvard's campus, visiting different schools within the University and checking out their Halls of
Residence. It didn't quite compare to our diggs at Northeastern University, with our 24 hour man on the door,
constantly providing endless chat.

 

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When big John Harvard met the Saltire Boys #hahvahd #friendship #memories

As of tomorrow, we get our team numbers increased by two, along with a cheeky day aff on the on the 3rd - a
national holiday Liv doesn’t get - to help us prepare for the chaos which will undoubtably ensue on the 4th...

Part 2 of 5 blogs recounting my 2015 summer internship in Boston with The New England Historic Genealogical Society which was sponsored by The Saltire Foundation.

Saltire Foundation Blog #2: The Truth About Charlie

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This is an account of the week preceding Sunday 14 June. Was really busy working and cutting about with the
troops to get it out last week.

My name is Michael Inglis, and I’m a Software Engineering student at the School of Informatics in The
University of Edinburgh. You know, the natural progression of the Computer Sciency type that collected
stamps when he was younger. I have an Internship with NEHGS, developing software for their website,
americanancestors.org.

Having finished the wonderful experience of 8 exams and a semester, with a workload I wouldn’t wish upon
anybody, I was then able to deal with getting organised for my internship, planning a trip down to London to
acquire the US Visa. I planned the the trip over the period of a day, flying there and back again from London
City. Getting up at 3:30 am to catch a 6 am flight was in hindsight, an error, possibly just as bad, if not worse
than the fact big David Dimbleby was switched off at 2.

 
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Saved up all my Scottish fivers for a huge day out in London ‪‪#‎ithinkyoullfindits ‬‪#‎legaltender‬

Fuelled by a concoction of Paracetamol Plus and M&S tuna sandwiches, still laughing about Scottish Labour,
I was able to navigate my way to the US Embassy in London, finding myself there 4 hours early, a buffer I’d
given myself to compensate for potential ludicrous worst case scenario situations. One honestly could turn up
to the embassy at anytime and still be seen. It’s basically Argos but the guy on the door has an assault rifle.
You get your ticket, wait for 5 minutes and go to a booth where you get your fingerprints taken and explain a
loose account of what you’ll be doing this summer. Having had my “interview”, I wondered about London a
bit, finding myself coming out at Westminster recalling that today was the Queen’s Speech and that the place
was on lockdown, with all her loyal subjects lined up foaming at the mouth at the prospect of catching a wee
glimpse of their Royal Overlords.

I was caught up in the crowd for half an hour or so before eventually getting out of the tax-payer funded
madness and wondering along South Bank a bit, kicking off when McDonalds questioned my Clydesdale
fiver, before naturally ending up in the Disney Store and buying a Stormtrooper mug to prove I wasn’t there for
all the princesses (I really was). This all culminated in a heavy crash around 3 in the afternoon which saw me
crawl back to the airport and hook up to Cafe Nero for life support.

Once back in Edinburgh, it was possible to turn my mind to packing for the trip. Important questions such as
“To bring or not to bring the Vodka Rev Privilege Card?” almost threw me off course, but I remained vigilant,
packing 10 weeks worth of pants, enabling me not to be concerned with such trivialities after arriving in the
big city. Packed with all my pants and an unreasonable amount of the very finest Scottish Breakfast tea, I got
on a plane down to London before getting on a flight to Boston. It was here I engaged in increasing my
Bostonian culture, watching The Departed on the plane, building on what knowledge I’d previously gained
from the Tea Party level on Assassin’s Creed 3. Over the 8 hours, I was also able to catch up on my Scottish
History, reading a bit of Rabbie Burns and watching films which are unquestionably historically accurate.

 
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Nae Danger
The Delays on both my flights resulted in me arriving about 11pm Boston time, hopping on the first bus I
could find at the airport and testing the patter with the natives. Jumping onto different tubes and eventually
finding my way to Northeastern’s Campus, I was able to get my Husky Card which lets me into my flat. A bit
of plastic, which, for whatever reason decided I didn’t need a jaw. To my despair the rest of the lads had
bailed off to their beds and I was faced with working out such serious issues as “why does the toilet have so
much water in it?” or “why does everyone call a hash key a pound?" by myself.

 
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"Husky" is the Northeastern University's Mascot and is also American for "chinless". 
Foodless and duvetless, I resigned for the night in this strange new country as a Lone Survivor, waiting in
anticipation for some quality patter over breakfast with the Boston Saltire Scholars in the morning...

Part 1 of 5 blogs recounting my 2015  summer internship in Boston with The New England Historic Genealogical Society which was sponsored by The Saltire Foundation.

Saltire Foundation Blog #1: Lone Survivor

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The two processes I will be looking at and comparing from my software development experience are the Waterfall and Iterative software design models with respect to Software Design Architecture. Both are widely used in practice and it’s unlikely both are explicitly adhered to, with people most likely opting for a combination of the two. The information below is mainly my opinion and relates to my experience working with both models in jobs.&nbsp;
As seen in the images above, the style of development the Waterfall model (left) encourages is that each stage is defined before starting it and completed before moving onto the next stage. The Iterative model (right) however encourages a more agile style of development. Software is written in small increments and tested with users or by the developers from a user point of view before accessing the quality of the software and considering requirement refinements for another development iteration.
<h3>Planning</h3>
The planning of a Software Project developed using the waterfall model is far more detailed than that of one with the iterative model. This enables the development team to have a structured timescale with all the requirements listed and scheduled, making funding the project much more straightforward (although statistically timing and funding targets are unlikely to be achieved).
The planning of an iterative development project is simply a set of functional and non functional requirements before development begins. Planning for budget and timescale isn’t as easy as the waterfall model simply because the requirements aren’t necessarily finalised at this stage. A rough outline can be easily drawn up with a timescale. It is however more difficult to keep to than a project using the Waterfall model due to the uncertainty regarding the requirements.
<h3>Requirements</h3>
The requirements of a Waterfall Model project are detailed and set and the start of the project and the following processes are built upon that. Little or no change is made to them throughout the lifecycle of the project. This results in problems if a client requires a change of requirements. Large amounts of work may be discarded if the new requirements deviate too much from the old.&nbsp;
This iterative development cycle is highly susceptible to changes in requirements. The constant refinement of the requirements after every iteration allow for the project to easily pivot to fit another set of requirements without too much work being lost. This allows us to tailor the software to the best it possibly can be through evaluation, over simply implementing the original vision without taking the time to go back and reconsider user testing results or how it could be made better.&nbsp;
<h3>Testing/Debugging</h3>
Both development cycles allow for test driven development. The benefits of a Waterfall model, knowing all the requirements from the onset allows for the test suite to be planned, developing a framework which covers all the functionality of the software. The Iterative only allows for behavioural development of a more agile nature nature. While it is possible to later draw up a test suite with 100% coverage, this is often time consuming and defeats the purpose of why one would develop iteratively over waterfall.&nbsp;&nbsp;
User testing a product in a waterfall model project is often a hit and miss experience. By this stage, if the feedback is negative, it’s not possible to rectify any major problems due to funding/time restraints. The iterative model however lends itself far better to user testing. If the product is user tested after every iteration, it is possible to act on, and tailor the software to the user’s feedback.&nbsp;
<h3>Maintenance&nbsp;</h3>
Maintaining a software project developed on either model is most likely going to be an agile experience. Small requirement changes such as new features or adapting it to suit a new OS are simple enough to be developed in iterations, in short development cycles.&nbsp;
<h3>Conclusions</h3>
In closing, larger corporate structures are going to be happier with the Waterfall models, ensuring a direct map of timescales and funding. Startups however tend to adopt a more agile, iterative model with their software. Constantly improving and refining what they have created. Both have their perks as we have seen above, but I believe the agile, iterative model to be the best. If done correctly, it creates a piece of software which is highly suited to the user’s requirements over what we assume the user might want in the waterfall model.&nbsp;

An article written for a Software Architecture and Process Management class I did in my penultimate year of university looking at the differences between the waterfall and iterative software design cycles.

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August 2015

Saltire Foundation Blog #5: Boogie Nights

August 2015

Saltire Foundation Blog #4: The Fighter

July 2015

Saltire Foundation Blog #3: Pain & Gain

July 2015

Saltire Foundation Blog #2: The Truth About Charlie

June 2015

Saltire Foundation Blog #1: Lone Survivor

March 2015

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