Monthly Archives: November 2022

Restful APIs!

Since we’ve been doing a lot of work with REST APIs, I thought I would look into them more and see what kind of other uses for them there are! Some things that I was interested in, was to look and see if I could brainstorm any uses for them, and through a few different websites

Here, here, and here

I found that REST APIs can be used in a variety of different ways! Some of them are things that I wouldn’t think about, while others are more in line with what I expect.

For example, there’s more obvious situations where you can use REST APIs in Twitter’s case that allows people to read certain data. This allows people to do more extensive research with Twitter and create other interesting data points that such as in-depth analysis.

Then, there are other cases that might not be as obvious. REST APIs can also be used in cases like Spotify. I wouldn’t have thought about it in such a way, but pulling information such as song artist and shuffle systems can be developed with REST APIs as well. On first thought, I was curious to see how Spotify would use REST APIs, but it does make a lot of sense when you think about it.

To break it down in it’s basic form, Spotify uses a variety of different endpoints to return all kinds of different information. Some are more obvious, like artist, alum, and tracks, but there are also endpoints for markets and even playlist!

Honestly, I think it’s really clever to set it up that way, and it makes it very easy for third party developers to work on these types of systems. Since many websites use REST as a foundation, if you’re familiar with how REST APIs are set up in one form or another, you can probably quickly learn it in other situations as well. It is certainly much easier to get a hang of than if every single API was different from one another, but I think that goes without saying.

Overall, I think that if I wanted to use REST APIs for my own project, I’d have some difficulties. There’s not a lot of things that I have that can use REST API, so I’ll have to think of a whole new project to make. For basic start, I’d probably make something with a lot of different data or categories, since I think REST APIs are best at that!

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bored Coding by iisbor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

What are Anti-patterns?

Anti-patterns are on the opposite side of the design pattern and are undesirable according to the blog “Anti-Patterns in Software Development That You Should Avoid”. Another term to describe Anti-patterns are called Design Smells.

The blog goes over the concept of the Golden Hammer anti pattern which occurs when using a familiar solution to attack an unfamiliar problem. Sometime it might work out, but most of the time it’s an inefficient way to solve problems.

The Golden Hammer anti-pattern is a concept that can shared in every aspect of life. Like for example, as mentioned in the blog some people tend to have their solution ready before understanding the problem like a doctor prescribing while the patient is still telling about the symptoms.

In software development, each design pattern is basically suited for its targeted problem. But it’s really easy to use the same framework, the same programming language, and the same design pattern for almost every problem. Like similar to the doctors example, some doctors might prescribe Ibuprofen to help a certain health but it might not completely relieve or heal that issue completely.

And so the Golden hammer could lead to; Poorly performing code, Overly complicated code, Redundant code. To avoid this anti-pattern it is best to find all potential solutions for one problem and benchmark them. List down all PROS and CONS for each solution then choose the better one.

Another anti-pattern is the God Class which for the most part controls many other classes, takes many responsibilities as well as lots of dependencies. An application could be well designed at the beginning so that there aren’t God classes but eventually dominant, very well specified classes will turn into God classes at some point.

The big ball of mud is a very common anti-pattern that happens when the solutions/application lacks a perceivable, flexible, suitable architecture as defined in the blog. A ball of mud will have, haphazardly and sloppy structure without coding comments, contains many God classes with more than 6000 lines of code, static variables/functions everywhere, methods being overloaded several times, and code duplications.

This anti-pattern is dangerous because it could happen while writing the application. Once we can’t refactor the code anymore, then we have to rewrite the entire thing. There are many reason why this anti-pattern could be brought up. It could be due to the frequent changes and requirements that the application might need, the deadline is near and the project is rushed, new developer are being brought in, or being too narrow minded about the design architecture that was initially brought in.

There are many more anti-patterns when it comes to the software development process, these are just the most common ones to date.

Link to blog: https://medium.com/geekculture/anti-patterns-in-software-development-that-you-should-avoid-780841ce4f1d

From the blog CS@Worcester – FindKelvin by Kelvin Nina and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Unified Modeling Language is a standardized language to
visually represent software construction, design, and architecture. UML designs
are process independent, and often omit irrelevant, or insignificant
relationships and attributes in favor of simplicity. UML diagrams can be used
to represent a variety of things in several ways. UML diagram can be classified
into two main categories: Structure Diagram, and Behavioral Diagram.

Structure diagrams show the structure of objects and the
relationship/interaction between those objects. Structure diagrams are to be
considered descriptive and behave like a blueprint for the code, i.e., it can
be used to inform the design of written code. Class diagrams are one of the
most frequently used Structure diagrams in software development. It shows each
of the classes in a system with their attributes, class methods or operations,
the scope of every attribute and method within a class, and the relationship
between two or more classes. A class diagram has three parts: Class Name, Attributes,
and Methods. The name of the class is always at the top, while any attribute
like a variable is in the middle. A note can be added pointing to the attribute
to show any individual specification or requirement. The methods are listed at
the bottom and can similarly have notes pointing to the method to show any
individual specification or requirement. Arrows are used to describe the
relationship between two or more classes. Depending on the arrow the specific
relationships can be identified. The various relationships are Association, Dependency,
Implementation, and Inheritance.

Behavioral diagrams show the intended function of the system
and any objects it contains. They describe how those objects should interact
with each other to make the system functional. Behavioral diagrams are
considered prescriptive, i.e., they show how the written code should work in
the system.

As a CS student, I found this
blog post on UML diagrams to be highly relevant and useful. Homework 1 and
Homework 2 provided a great opportunity to delve into the complexities of these
diagrams and gain a deeper understanding of their various properties and concepts,
especially for Class Diagrams. It will very likely be useful in future classes
as UML diagrams allow you to be able to communicate your design ideas effectively
to other members of your group, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and
working towards the same goal. They can also be a valuable resource for
documenting and maintaining software systems, making it easier to understand
and modify the system as needed. For example, the visibility of attributes and
the connections between classes, as represented by arrows, are crucial elements
that contribute to the overall coherence and functionality of UML diagrams.
Additionally, the provided examples helped to clarify and illustrate these
concepts in a clear and concise manner.

Source:

https://creately.com/blog/diagrams/uml-diagram-types-examples/

https://www.uml-diagrams.org/