I have had this unhealthy assumption in my mind that CS is just preparing us to just sit at our desk all day and write code for hours upon hours(at least in the industry context). Although, in the cases where this may be true, for those that are in that position, there may be a good chance that they are doing what they enjoy. I don’t see this being the entire case for me. Knowing this, a couple questions and thoughts come to mind; in exploring different roles one can play in the tech industry, where may my own opportunities lie? Can I recognize what I am learning in relation to that, maybe even evaluate how/what I am learning to where I might see myself? Can I map out my career?

I think it is important to ask such questions while taking these CS courses. While asking such questions during the courses I can recognize where my strengths may lie and discover possible passions/interest. I am prone to overthinking(especially with complex ideas) and such practices allow me to step back a little. Going off previously stated questions, there is something about the front-end that is quite alluring to me. Which leads me to an article that I found titled “Exploring the front-end of project management”

Although it doesn’t talk about specific front-end development tools, (a topic in which I would like to look more into) and more so on what comprises the front-end and the role of management, it is a exploration into the front-end, or defined in the paper as the “earliest stages of a project”.  I think that the article is still relevant as we can recognize that the POGIL group work style of the class allows students to be able to work in groups, the prevalence of different roles is to almost simulate the professional setting in which on may work. This style teaches students to be able to work well with others and communicate very complex ideas. I personally find a lot of enjoyment in working in groups and struggling and learning together, specifically; exploring and playing with the different roles from manager to presenter, working through unexpected situations through analysis and modification, and sharing finding with the entire class. From my brief research, the front-end to me seems to be where I can explore not only different roles but explore even more broad experience from different aspects of the tech industry.

On a different note, I made an observation in my last post about the nature of the learning that is done in CS and how topics can connect. I described that connection of topics as niches. I wanted to make a correction and niches may not be the right word. Perhaps, layers, at least in the context of this class I could argue that front-end being a layer in software development is more suitable. If anyone gets what I am trying to say and can find a better way to word it, please let me know.

https://doi.org/10.1080/21573727.2013.775942

From the blog CS@Worcester – Sovibol's Glass Case by Sovibol Keo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I often find it hard to relate back to other courses and easily forget about what I have previously learned. Luckily, my memory is not as bad as I think it is and it eventually comes back to me, especially in the case where I have to come back to a skill/technique regularly. I find that with Computer Science the evolution of knowledge is one that is clear yet has a depth of knowledge that intertwines one course with the next.

On one hand, you can have a course that is so specific in a niche of CS that it may be hard to see its relevance in another CS course on the other hand you may have a course that is seemingly so broad that it is hard to pinpoint how it may carry over.

I think that with any specific area of interest, as one continues with their education, the degree to which prior knowledge is necessary and relevant to learning a new topic only increases the further you progress.

All this is to say that last semester I took a cloud computing course and I remember that course being broad in its application of cloud computing. I wanted to look into the use of cloud computing in the context of software design and architecture. Secondly, after only getting a taste of front-end development in this course I wanted more and I wanted to solidify my understanding of the back-end and front-end in an attempt to satisfy a goal of mine described in a previous blog post.

Overall I’m not seeing any major differences between implementing software through the cloud vs other options other than the vast benefits that cloud computing can offer. Benefits of cloud computing range from storage, server, database, software networking, intelligence, and analytics. The blog begins with describing what cloud computing is then goes into detail about what front-end and back-end cloud architecture is along with cloud based delivery.

I was then led to another blog about specifically front-end development as I was not satisfied with what the previous blog provided. This blog hooked me with its first line saying “Front-end developers need to design sites that are engaging enough to nudge the target audience toward a conversion.” I find this idea to be very interesting because it starts to dive into the purpose of front-end development.  In my next post I will discuss where I may see myself in the future and what role I might want to play in the tech industry. There is a point in the blog in which the duties of a front-end developer are laid out leading to an intrigue and wonder about whether this is a niche in CS where I may see myself, in front-end development I feel it might be a role in which I can use a variety of skills/techniques in order to develop myself.

https://www.clariontech.com/blog/cloud-computing-architecture-what-is-front-end-and-back-end

https://webflow.com/blog/front-end-development

From the blog CS WSU – Sovibol's Glass Case by Sovibol Keo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I want to focus this blog post not on something that I’m interested in but rather something I think that I should know. I decided to put some more research into design smells, this topic seemed valuable because I have this perception that understanding and looking at code is not a skill that I have yet to developed. I wish to improve upon this, so I found this presentation on code refactoring and design smells that is pretty in depth and it goes into a little more detail about what we had discussed in class. In the class activity we connected technical uses of the word to technical definitions based on our understanding of the common definition. This activity provided a basis for understanding different smells. This led me to find a higher-level presentation on design smells and grasp some level of understanding of what was being discussed. In the video the speaker Sandi Metz suggests that when you can identify a code smell you can then refactor the code to better suite future use. What refactoring is, is the ability to rearrange code without changing its behavior. The ability to look at code and associate information is exactly what I am looking for.

There were a couple of ideas that stood out to me. The presenter offered an analogy that stood out to me that  refactoring is kind of like a recipe. Sandi then provides a valuable resource that maps specific code smells to a reference in Martin Fowlers book , a refactoring recipe that is “curative”  to that code smell. This leads me to another suggestion that it is okay at some level to “own your code smell” if it is working and won’t change in the future. This reference to Martin Fowlers books immediately reminded me of his very informative blog. The book itself seems very interesting to me and could potentially offer a wealth of valuable knowledge that could vastly improve my abilities.

As an avid home cook this analogy spoke to my soul, all this talk of smells and recipes sparked an understanding of code that I was not familiar with. In my journey as a home cook, I have been exploring the ability to make food more creatively as instructed by a transformative cookbook that I have been reading. There is an idea that I have been working on that suggests not following a recipe and relying on your senses and being actively involved to create a wonderful dish. I find that this relates heavily to my journey in becoming a software developer, taking information from outside resources and interpreting it in a practical way all while relying on my senses and built intuition.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Sovibol's Glass Case by Sovibol Keo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Setting goals allows me to take things one at a time and move over those self-imposed barriers effortlessly, but it is the learning and the love of the process that don’t even allow me to put those barriers there in the first place.
Now on to one of the actual goals, I have been wanting to use what I am learning as a computer science major to implement into my current workplace. I think that it has been a great opportunity to work there and they have provided a good environment for self-development similar to that of being in school. As a token of appreciation, it would mean a lot to me to be able to leave something useful behind. That something useful would be in the form of Software. In the past year or so I have had a level of engagement in my courses that I haven’t had in a while and that is most likely due to recognizing the practical application of what I’m being taught. This has led me to be vigilant at my workplace and observe problems that can be solved with software. After figuring out what the problems are and defining those issues
For a while, I have been stuck on what to do now after defining the problems from the software development class, and based on the topic of my last two blog posts it is clear to me that figuring out suitable architecture is important to a well-developed software system. To do this, I need to understand the important requirements of the users involved. Currently, I am under the impression that microservices architecture would be most suitable as many of its defining characteristics would fulfill the requirements of the business. Within this process of developing software, I am learning that there is a lot of picking and choosing systems that are specific to the needs of the business. Although it can still be overwhelming, I am relieved that there are already many preexisting systems and that picking and choosing make it a little easier instead of having to completely create something from scratch. On the aspect of picking already developed systems, the topic of API comes into mind I found this useful article outlining different APIs and their use cases and how some are still in use today and fit specific needs. The article points to the idea that even though some APIs might seemingly be outdated that they still have a use case that only requires such an API and nothing more.

I understand that I still have a lot to look out and plenty to learn but recognizing that there is a direct application to what I am learning provides some great motivation and hope that will allow me to continue to get over whatever barriers may be in the way whether self-imposed or not.

https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/soap-vs-rest-vs-graphql-vs-rpc/

From the blog CS@Worcester – Sovibol's Glass Case by Sovibol Keo and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Being able to optimize software development is very important but the practice of optimizing can be a constant battle when attempting to create good software. The last class I took prior to CS-343 was CS-373, an Operating Systems course. The final project of that course had us create our own phone applications, and while it was exciting to finally work on such a project, it turned out to be very difficult in some aspects. I had the idea of creating a finance app. It was supposed to record ones spending habits throughout the coming months and weeks- planning out a minimum amount they should spend and save. I thought it was going to be very easy to implement and I wrote down ideas that the application software was going to include such as a credential screen, a colorful UI, a splash screen with the logo, etc. The idea of implementing a way of connecting actual bank accounts to gather information was also in play. Unfortunately due to my lack of experience It was hard for me to complete my vision and at the end of the day, I was only able to submit an unfinished application.

There were many reasons for such results, first off, the code was a mess. I would write countless lines of code, and the program, for being a simple finance application, took ages to write. I had to implement over 1000 lines of code just to record information like user spending and budget analytics. It was a nightmare because my only priority was to get my code to work but how the code was organized would stop me in my tracks. I would sit in front of my computer screen for hours looking for compiler errors or logic errors. It made development very frustrating. I’ve taken classes such as CS-348 which served the purpose of explaining how to completely avoid similar issues that I was having, but this project being my first big project, it proved to be a lot more difficult to make a habit of those practices than anticipated. With that being said, the purpose of this blog will be to record my software development process. Whether it be a new technique I’ve learned, a new technology that has really helped me, and whatnot.

From the blog cs-wsu – FindKelvin by Kelvin Nina and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.