Author Archives: bluu1

Blog Post 2

Agile Principles: The Complete Guide To All 12 Principles For 2025

For this blog entry I decided to choose something related to Agile. In the blogpost, Agile Principles: The Complete Guide To All 12 Principles For 2025 written by Sean O’Connor, he goes over how Agile’s flexibility gives it real world benefits for businesses, development teams, and customers. Much like how with what we went over in class, Sean O’Connor explains that Agile’s strengths aren’t so much about speed of delivery of a product, but in it’s efficiency in producing a working project, with speed as positive byproduct. As someone who’s never been good at long term planning, what was explained in the blogpost really resonated with me. Things like catching problems early when it hasn’t become a core “feature” of the software, building what the customer actually needs rather then wasting time, and especially the part of creating quick wins, are some things that I value in a game plan. The blogpost then goes into 12 principles that makeup all Agile methodologies, a couple of which really stood out to me.

One of the principles was delivering working software frequently. I like the idea of real progress you can actually see and use, not just what it could potentially be. It’s nice when you get to see something that actually works early, even if it’s just a rough version. This approach makes more sense to me than spending weeks or months planning something that might not even be what was wanted, which is just a huge waste of time and energy. So to me being able to get instant feedback, learn faster, and fix problems before they turn into something major, is huge.

Another principle that ties into that is measuring progress by working software. That line really sums up Agile’s idea of “cutting out the chaff”. It’s easy to get caught up in planning, documentation, or presentations that sound good but don’t actually move the project forward. A working prototype says more than any report could. I think that same logic applies to class projects too, seeing your code actually run feels like a real measure of progress, not how well it’s outlined on paper.

The principle of simplicity, or “maximizing the amount of work not done,” also hit home for me. It’s about focusing on what truly matters and using just enough time and energy needed. I tend to overthink projects at the start, but this mindset reminds me that getting the essentials working is more productive than building unnecessary features. Fewer moving parts also means fewer ways for things to break (something I know all to well).

All in all, it’s reassuring to see that my “slacker mindset” can be the basis for something actually productive.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CS Notes Blog by bluu1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Post 1

https://github.blog/engineering/engineering-principles/how-we-use-github-to-be-more-productive-collaborative-and-secure/

Since we’ve been going over GitHub and how and why we use it in class, I decided to pick an article right from the source. In the blogpost How we use GitHub to be more productive, collaborative, and secure, Mike Hanley describes how the staff at GitHub use GitHub themselves as well as how they’ve made new additions with developers in mind. A neat thing I thought as developers themselves working on GitHub I’m sure they thought “wouldn’t it be nice if…” then realizing “oh wait we can just add that”. One of those features that the blog mentions is the “new code search and code view”, which allows for a more quick and easy way to sift through multiple lines of code.

Another point in the blog was about productivity and under that Codespaces. As we had used Codespaces during the GitKit Chapters, it felt well integrated, so I was pretty surprised to find out that it was something that they had only recently implemented and started using (they started using Codespaces in 2021 and the article was written in 2022). Based on the article, this allowed what once took 45 minutes on local hardware to 60 seconds on much faster hardware then most would have on hand. This alone struck me as a sort of equalizer, allowing for more inclusivity in the fact that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on hardware to be on the same “playing field” as other developers.

The last main point in the blog goes into GitHub’s stance on security, which I guess isn’t to surprising as Mike Hanley’s current role in GitHub as well as his previous role was being in charge of security. Anyways, too often is cybersecurity put on the backburner until an inevitable data breach occurs, then it’s all “we value our customers security and privacy” and “security is our number one priority”. Mr. Hanley also seems to see things the same way, as he mentions how they were “still pleading with organizations to implement multi-factor authentication…”, something I consider to be pretty bare-minimum in terms of keeping ones accounts safe. Due to this stance on security I was glad to see that GitHub actually enforces multi-factor authentication with security keys. Another method of keeping things secure is their use of CodeQL. According to the article, in the same open-source spirit that GitHub was founded with, CodeQL queries are also open-source where either GitHub or other developers can share vulnerability patterns. This allows for not just “one set of eyes” to pinpoint possible exploits but instead the entire community.

Reading this article has given me a better sense of how the tools and practices we’re learning now actually look in a professional environment. On top of that seeing GitHub’s own team use features like code search, Codespaces, and built-in security tools shows how even though it feels like we’re leagues apart we’re still on even footing.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CS Notes Blog by bluu1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Intro Post – CS-348

Hey this is my introduction post to CS Notes Blog

This blog will be for me to post about the different things I’ll be learning about in CS-348.

The current use of this space is to fulfill the course objectives, if I find it helpful I may continue to use it. We’ll see.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CS Notes Blog by bluu1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.