Author Archives: Ryan N

Blog Post for Quarter 4

Considering how the brief simulation of workflow was a recent assignment, I thought it’d be interesting to re-explore the waterfall workflow method. I found this article interesting due to the end. It emphasized potential benefits of aspects of the waterfall method. Instead of outright rejecting it, it highlighted some positives.

I think this is particularly interesting as it highlights the benefits and suggests pulling certain aspects out by suggesting hybrid styles. This also relates back to class by directly referring to agile methodologies. When referring to hybrid styles, they mention combining waterfall and agile together. I found this interesting in how there a likely many different places that use different workflow practices as well. This is also mentioned in the article as it does refer to companies choosing certain styles of workflow.

For example, it used waterfall’s extensive documentation and planning as a positive in some situations. It could be used to keep the agile method in a rough plan and sequence things more effectively. This was described to help maintain a long-term goal more concretely. By stating how the extensive early planning is, it tells of how it may be used in tandem with another style. This can lead to moments where the goal is still clear even if many short-term ones were met. In addition, it can have some flexibility by using agile’s dynamic and constant feedback to make adjustments. This could mitigate the huge commitment of waterfall.

I found this also interesting since I remember concepts of technical debt and clean code as well. Where clean code wants to reduce technical debt by taking more time to make code cleaner and more efficient to modify. I found this interesting in how both waterfall and agile could technically use it. Either by planning on certain things to build from the beginning, or opting for the modularity of relying on numerous functions. Alternatively, documentation could exist to inform on how code should be written, so long term projects are made more consistent. After all, changing too many things may lead to a lot of backtracking, so there has to be a purpose to cleaning up code in a certain way.

This is something that I should keep in mind for the future as I may need to adapt to different workflow styles depending on the company. This is also for personal use to see what flows I prefer in my work. The highlight of pros and cons also tells me I should look out for advantages and disadvantages for other styles as well. It makes things more situational and informs me to be more flexible and open-minded.

https://ones.com/blog/waterfall-lifecycle-computer-science-pros-cons/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ryan's Blog Maybe. by Ryan N and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Post for Quarter 3

November 16th, 2025

Considering how clean code was recently on my mind (mostly due to a recent assignment), I thought it might be interesting to look into. I ended up finding out that there a various style guides (well, a comic from an assignment also showed me that too) and this blog shows some examples. It is nice as a basic overview of some style guides. It most notably noted 3 types of styles that revolve around whitespace usage and brace placement. It compliments what I was learning in class as the class typically focused on things like function and variable names, reducing the amount of nested loops, and the usage of too many parameters. The blog goes over how some styles place braces in a way to make it easier to parse through things like heavily nested loops and such. These both end up telling of ways to increase clarity but in different ways, which is super fascinating.

Interestingly, this led to me to look at my own code. My current code uses the “Allman” style of braces. This was taught to me back in AP Computer Science back in high school. I vaguely remember “Allman” being discussed in class, but I never made the connection between it and how I typed code. I ended up doing it since it was the easiest to read. Well, that and the professor told me that this was the “proper” way to code. (I vaguely remember the thing I did code in also automatically did it for me too.) Since then, I’d sometimes just go around and putting braces in that format. (Perhaps I’m worse off due to this since I overly rely on a style. I’ll need to learn to read other styles soon.)

Overall, I’ve mainly noticed my code is super, super bad. Like, overly bad. So next time I code something, I should do many different things. This blog I picked and the assignments on “clean code” would be a good start honestly. (Unfortunately, as someone who “thinks by doing,” I had a habit of creating copious amounts of technical debt without even realizing it. Then again, I was always the type to prefer redoing things entirely as opposed to looking for minor improvements….) Maybe one day my code will be actually good for once. And thankfully, I’ve got various places to start improving. There’s a long road ahead…. Well, at least that means that I have a lot of ways I can improve; the plateau isn’t here just yet. In fact, it is very far from where I am.

https://iannis.io/blog/the-ultimate-code-style/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ryan's Blog Maybe. by Ryan N and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Post for Quarter 2

October 21st, 2025

Recently, my class has been going over stuff regarding teamwork and ways to approach building a software or product. For example, the waterfall method, agile methodology, and scrum have come up in discussion. This has reminded me of POGIL since POGIL was a group used in the classroom semi-frequently.

Because of this correlation, I decide to look at blogs about POGIL. However, I noticed something interesting about the blog I chose. So I chose two just because I found some things interesting. The first was made with WordPress.com, much like the one I’m making here. It was about POGIL. The blog appeared to just be called “The POGIL Project.” Or, that’s what I have surmised after looking at the web address. Additionally, there was some interesting notes regarding how it appears to be designed for faculty teaching or implementing POGIL based team activities. However, the last post appears to be in 2015, which is not as recent as I’d like. (However, there appears to be someone who has the same name as the author of this blog who is cited to be impactful to the development of POGIL. Which is pretty cool, though I couldn’t concretely find evidence that they were the same person.)

So, I looked for an alternative. The author was not listed which isn’t great but it is recent. It appears to also be about POGIL. But the most interesting part was how it was applied to science as opposed to actual computer science. Actually, both blogs do that as well.

This new blog I picked was basically an overview of how POGIL works and why it is good to use. It overviewed the reasons why POGIL is used and what it is intended to do. It basically overlaps with what I know about POGIL already.

In a way, this is interesting in how this mean POGIL is both universal and useful. It isn’t just a weird Computer Science class thing we do, it’s an actual science thing. Which is definitely more interesting to know about considering I rarely encountered POGIL before college. It probably won’t really affect my opinion on POGIL but it is mildly interesting how it is something that I’ll see around. I guess I can keep that in mind.

FIRST INITIAL BLOG: https://thepogilproject.wordpress.com/

SECOND, REVIEWED BLOG POST: https://www.transtutor.blog/pogil-guide-high-school-biology

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ryan's Blog Maybe. by Ryan N and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Post for Quarter 1

October 5th, 2025

Recently, I’ve been working on using Git. This came in the form of using a little bit of GitHub, a little bit of GitLab, and the textbook made to help instruct me on how to use them. I began to learn the basics of repositories, and how to make edits and pull requests.

For example, I am now able to create a fork from a repository, create a remote origin, a clone of that onto my local device, make edits using Visual Studio Code, stage those edits, commit those edits, push those edits back to my remote origin, then establish a pull request. And a little bit more. So far, this Quarter of my class has been pretty interesting. I will note how the public changes and such are very interesting to me. I don’t usually like being in public places often because I assume I should be competent before doing anything in public, but oh well.

For the blog post I selected, I wanted to know just a smidge more about Git, since I was learning about it. (This will be linked below at the bottom of this post.) It mostly discusses the future plans for Git and potential for AI.

Honestly, there isn’t much for me to really do from this. I just note how AI appears to be Git stuff I currently use, so that’s mildly interesting. Though, I found it interesting that Git, much like I, is currently developing. It’s fun to think about how I learn and improve as a person that other things in the world are doing the same. While they are wildly different contexts, I find it cool. Everything is always changing and such. Even as I learn, I make notes that aren’t in the textbook to myself. Git will probably always get things added by various different people as well.

It encourages and intimidates me in some way. It’s very cool that by the time I “get caught up” it’ll be better than what I’m currently using, but at the same time, what if everything I learned becomes redundant? Though, for me, I was always a person to enjoy experiences, and I never really liked the idea of a limit. If anything, it is just more “fun” for me. There’s more to learn and I’ll never be caught up. My experiences will lead to my growth, so when the time comes, I’ll be much more suited to using the new tools that arrive.

https://github.blog/open-source/whats-next-for-git-20-years-in-the-community-is-still-pushing-forward/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ryan's Blog Maybe. by Ryan N and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Blog Post 1

September 8th, 2025

Hello! This is a blog? Probably. As a current student, I will (hopefully) be blogging about my experiences in Computer Science. Otherwise, I don’t really know what to do with this. Anyhow:

I currently have some experience with code. I took AP Computer Science in high school, and a Game Design Class (technically twice by two different teachers due to a mix-up in my high school schedule, but frankly, they did different things so I don’t actually regret it.)
This gives me experience with both Python and Java, although at a beginner level. Additionally, my First Year Seminar class refreshed me on Python, and I took the beginner Unix Systems Programming, which taught me a little bit of C.

I did use Scratch to make a game back in high school but I was atrocious at it. I remember having a habit of over complicating my stuff too. Especially in my Game Design Class. I took AP Computer Science the same year as it and because all the other students were seniors, my teacher let me work on my Game Design stuff after the seniors graduated. I took twice as long as everyone else and barely finished my “game.” (Officially, I never finished it and passed in a partially modified older project.) I am near certain the teacher just let it slide because I was working despite having no official assignments in AP Computer Science and helping people in my game design class. (I have like, 2 unfinished projects? Both were intended to be my final program for my Game Design Class, but neither were passed in.)

The reason I decided to pursue Computer Science was pretty simple: I thought video games were cool. Then I just went for it, and it was okay. I had some classes in high school but nothing complicated. But as time went on, I eventually went into my AP Computer Science class which I did okay in. One day, the teacher said I “have a passion” for Computer Science. Frankly, I thought that was a weird statement since I didn’t really do that much coding nor was I particularly good at it, but it made me feel good about myself so here I am. (Nowadays I hear of my cousins swapping Majors from Computer Science to basically anything else so I’m either doing okay or making a grave mistake. Oh well.)

Anyhow, that’s my current experience with Computer Science and I guess I’ll give you all an update later on.

Thanks for Reading,
Ryan Nguyen

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ryan's Blog Maybe. by Ryan N and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.