Level 314 - Completed
14 May 2020
The Software Engineering Journey
Throughout the course of the Spring 2020 Semester, I had the privilege to learn a variety of software engineering concepts, such as problem analysis and design, team-oriented development, quality assurance, configuration management, and project planning. This class taught a lot more than just web app development. Through it, I learned how to be a better programmer and person. I discovered the importance of design patterns, ethics, agile project management, coding standards, open source software development, functional programming, development environments, and user interface frameworks. In general, software engineering was an intricate discovery of knowledge filled with hands-on experiences as well as trial and error. There are numerous aspects and tools of the trade. In order to produce successful projects, testing must be conducted to ensure that there are no bugs and that everything runs smoothly.
Coding Standards
Beyond web application development, learning the main idea behind coding standards encourages people to double-check their work, refrain from making errors, and write so that the world may understand you. Without coding standards, users may be left in the dark if their code structure is accurate or not. This is analogous to spelling and grammar checks in Microsoft Word when writing essays. Similar to the use of ESLint, a code analysis and quality assurance tool that verifies that the programmer’s code adheres to standards, Grammarly uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to assist users in creating mistake-free research papers, emails, and anything that involves sentences. Instead of seeing a green checkmark in the righthand corner of the screen, users see a green circle. If a paper does not comply with MLA or APA format, then the composition is not acceptable. Employers and college admissions are prone to disregarding students who have a messy application. Additionally, if there are a lot of errors in code, then it will not load properly. If we do not follow the standards of transmitting information and thought through words and care enough to be detail-oriented, and then its importance is belittled.
Understanding coding standards helps with communication, quality assurance, confidence, styling, paying attention to specifics, legibility, and expression. It helps us retain good habits. Each language has their own way of writing and sentence structure, similar to how there are different ways to write a program that results in the same output. Having proper code is aesthetically pleasing and improves the program’s quality. Writing appropriately formatted code is a great technique that all software engineers should incorporate. Coding standards are very important. When everyone follows the guidelines, then we can better recognize how a program operates when reading other code. Absorbing all of the knowledge on how to suitably write code may be tedious, but it is exceptionally beneficial in the long run. Studying how code should be written definitely helps one to become skilled at a programming language.
Having a consistent style of writing is vital in ensuring that code and words are legible and decipherable by all. When multiple people are working on a project together, having a similar method of writing prevents conventions, disorderliness, and mistakes such as mixing up variable names or forgetting a bracket. With a proper implementation of coding standards, complexity is minimized, the probability of errors and failure are reduced, and ease of maintenance is certified. Additionally, coding standards and ESLint aids software engineers in practicing the best way to implement professional code and improve readability. This is applicable in all areas of life because we should write and speak eloquently with importance while completely enjoy learning how use creativity but also abiding by the standards. We must also follow the laws and abide by the rules of life, school, and coding.
Agile Project Management
Issue Driven Project Management is relevant to many areas of work and may be applied to various types of projects, beyond software engineering. This is similar to having a game plan of action, crafting a blueprint, writing an outline, and preheating an oven. We should not just jump right into something, without taking the time to map out the best way to approach it. When all team members can easily see what part of the project that they are responsible for, and well as their tasks, the group is able to efficiently collaborate.
The ability to break down a humongous assignment into many smaller duties makes the project appear to be more doable, and we achieve small accomplishments along the way. Finding a clear means of communication is necessary when working with others. Projects should be meaningful and be created with the purpose of helping the community. For our ICS 314 final project, work was divided into three milestones, each with a specific purpose that built off the previous one, using the GitHub project board. Within each milestone were issues, where each team member could establish which matters needed to be done, were in progress, or were completed. In life, it is important to work towards your goals. As a subset of Agile Project Management, Issue Driven Project Management allows team members to be productive by divvying up work in a way that allows members to work on the same project at different times. By following the Issue driven project management (IDPM) guidelines, teams should be able to review progress, work independently towards the main goal, set deadlines, be organized, and advocate for responsibility. This ability ensures that everyone is on the same page.
The skills that I acquired this semester will help me in continuing to write technical essays, code with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, enhance my professional persona, effectively use techniques, behave righteously, work with IntelliJ and Chrome Developer Tools, design with UI frameworks such as React, Meteor, and MongoDB to make sites both aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate, apply design patterns, and appropriately deploy software.