Platform Code Benchmark

Welcome to the Code Benchmarking Exercise for the Platform Tribe!

This task is designed to be an open ended, low impact opportunity for you to demonstrate how you approach code with an emphasis on quality and awareness of good development practices.

The Exercise does not have a "correct answer", and is designed to help you demonstrate to the hiring manager how you approach problems and what attributes you feel contribute positively or negatively to the software development process.

It is intended that applicants take no more than approximately 1 hour to complete this task following Setup and Running the Script.

Prerequisites

• Basic Javascript knowledge
• Basic Git knowledge
• Personal Github Account and Basic Github Familiarity

Setup

Either:

• Download the Zip of this repository, then use it to create a new git repo in your own github account

or

• Checkout the main branch then change the remote of your local repo to point to a new repository in your own github account

Running the Script

Option 1: Node.js on Workstation

• Download and Install Node.js
• In the root of the repository, execute

node -e "require(\"./index\").handler({})"

Option 2: Docker

• Download and Install Docker
• In the root of the repository, execute

docker run --rm -v "%cd%":/usr/src/app -w /usr/src/app node node -e "require(\"./index\").handler({})"

Example Output

Loading hello world function
request: {}
response: {"statusCode":200,"headers":{"x-custom-header":"my custom header value"},"body":"{\"message\":\"Good day, you of World.\",\"input\":{}}"}

Scenario

You are being asked to improve the quality of the code provided in index.js.

The index.js file in this repository contains code that is used to handle a simple API call, which responds with a message compiled from some simple information provided in the request, e.g.

Good day, you of World.

All you need to know for the purposes of this exercise is that an external service will invoke the handler function, providing an object containing information about the request in a parameter event.

Extra Detail: In reality, the code is invoked by AWS Lambda which is configured to call the handler function, providing the event object according to the information provided by the API call. The Lambda is trigger by a request made to API Gateway.

Output

We are expecting:

• the "main" branch to contain all code and files to be submitted
• the submitted code to produce the same results as the original code
• the submitted code is more readable than the original code and follows good practice
• the git commit history is understandable and follows good practice
• [Optional] A "NEXT_STEPS.md" file containing potential improvements that a subsequent developer could make, assuming they are large enough to be outside of the scope of this Exercise

Submission

• Using the hiring manager's work email (xxx@dcthomson.co.uk), add them as a collaborator to your private repository
• The hiring manager may request that you also add additional collaborators from the organisation to review the submission