Category Archives: cswsu

Sprint Retrospective 4

This week’s Sprint retrospective we had many issues. Most of the group could not open ng2-amrs program. So, for some of the sprint we were trying to get it working. When we first saw the projects, we are all able to download and able to run ng2-amrs program without any issues. However, for some reason four out of the five people’s program were not working. We sent messages to Ampath to see if it was something that they would be able to help us fix. However they were no help. We were also asking other students in the class of they were having similar issues but no one else was having the same issues. Most of us tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program and it did work for a few. While we were trying to work on fixing the ng2 we were also thinking of ideas of how to get this encryption service into the website. First we were thinking that they wanted only an encryption for the password. But from talking to Jonathan this encryption service was meant to encrypt everything from data coming in, going out, passwords, and files. We were looking up research about other encryption services that might have done this before but most of the encryption service are not done offline. This is because we would not be able to save the hash password and the salt on the tablet because if we did they would be saved on the tablet they are using. That is not really safe a encryption especially because it is patient data. At this point we are confused with what we must do. Unlike other projects that give us specifications and an end goal of what they want. The ampath project is different for us because you cannot just message them and expect a response right away because they live on the other side of the world and most of the times when we are brainstorming ideas on what we want to do. We don’t know exactly what they want and when we do ask they gave us a “yeah that seems fine.” kind of answer. Most of times we just want exactly what they want. For me this project has been difference because for other classes and other products that I have been working on such as personal project and project for classes I would be told what the final expectation for this project would be. Since this project for Ampath is such a huge project and many of us are just learning new stuff just for this project. We don’t know much of what they want or what to do. Once we understand that they wanted a websites that would be able to hold all the patient data offline so that they would be able to meet patients where they would have no cellular service. But part of the problem with that is when doing encryption services from the standpoint of view of programmers we want this to be perfect so that way and path would not have any troubles but I’ll find encryption to us feasible or possible we hope that the next Prince able to get a lot more work done we would try and get something so that they can work off of this or maybe the next project for the next class would be able to take the coat that we have now and work off of that

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Concrete Skills

This week I read the book Apprenticeship Patters guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman. There was this one section that caught my attention and it was the Concrete Skills. This was very interesting to me because it’s quote was “Having knowledge is not the same as having the skill and practical ability to apply that knowledge to create software applications. this is where craftsmanship comes in.” Growing up we are taught that you need all the knowledge you can to even be able to be considered for a job. Many people tell us that you need even a masters to be considered for a job these days anymore. However there was a professor I meet back when I first started  programming he told me he used to be the hiring manager for IBM and he meet hundred of different candidates that tried and applied for the job. The things he learned about hiring people is that not everyone is the same.  Yes there will be people who have the knowledge of programming and would pass all these tests and get everything right. However,  once it came to actual coding and work ethics they were very questionable. There are people who got out of college that have a different perspective. They say that  everything you learn in school isn’t going to be helpful in the real world. Most of the time you learn all your skills once you get a job where they teach you what skills you need. It is really all about if the job would take the risk and hire you. There are many stories that there are people who have basic knowledge of programming are hired because they have experience in other fields that can be used to help out the team in different ways because you don’t just want a team of programmers that know one language but a team that can cover each others weaknesses. That’s why I think that this sections is very good because it gives a real perspective of what companies should look for in a person not what they can do now but how will hiring them affect us in the future and the capability of these people in the future.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint Retrospective 3

This week’s Sprint retrospective we decided to look up different types of encryption services. Everyone had an encryption service that they were to look up and then write a shorts program see how it works. We decided out of all the encryption service out there we wanted to look at crypto-JS, Forge, web crypto, pouchdb, and bcryptjs. The one I researched was forged encryption service. It did do what we wanted however we decided not to use it because it has not been updated in 4 years so since we are working with sensitive data and did not want it to be leaked forge was out of the picture. Pouchdb was another one that we ruled out because this encryption service was made by someone that did it during their free time so it wasn’t updated regularly. The encryption service that we did decide to use was crypto Js because it was the simplest encryption service that we could have used and is not too old and the last update was not that long ago.

Finally, we decide what kind of encryption service we wanted to use. We started to talk about how we encrypt the data that is given to us. Oran gave an idea that we would encrypt the data as it comes our way so it would act like a blanket. Whenever some data such as a string, array, and any other sensitive information would come through the encryption service. It would take that data and encrypt it. However Oren had a colleague that was familiar with encryption services and he told him that data like that should be encrypted already. So that brought up a good point we want to ask Ampath if they have the data already encrypted or is this encryption service itself supposed to encrypt the data that they have. So for now moving forward we decided that we’re going to act like they need the data to be encrypted. We also need to start working with the other teams to know what data that is going to be given us to us and if cryptojs would be able to work with what they are planning.

So for the next week I will be studying up more on crypto Js and then trying to help the team write a basic program that can take inputs and give outputs of strings, letters, and words. I learned a lot about encryption during the week that we were encryption service in the beginning I did not know how the encryption service works such as what was salt and encrypt a string how would it remember what encryption that use to the string and if you were to send it to another device to be encrypted with that device need that same type of program to unencrypted password

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Unleash Your Enthusiasm

This section of the chapter is very relatable because when I first got into computer science most of my friends and family were not very impresses or helpful with my interest in it because most of them were in business or the medical field. so just as it says in the section i had to nourish my curiosity of computer science by reading up on things myself and I was just getting the bare minimum of CS. Luckily I had one cousin who was already in computer science and he told me about these competitions called Hackathons that were programming competitions that people did for computer science that you can win prizes and learn about programming and making connections. At first I turned him down many times because in my head I thought that those Hackathons were for people who has experience programming and at least has one or two years of knowledge under their belt. However, I was very wrong when I finally went I meet many people who never programmed in their lives. This was the start of my fascination of computer science. When I first started all I did was give out ideas and suggestions of what the product, website, or program should do. I talked to many different companies such as google, dell, hp, twillio, and ect. They all told me about their own path in their computer science careers. From there I started to want to learn more and more programming and wanted to write my own stuff just for fun and learn how things work.

To me this chapter has a deeper meaning such that we all do need to unleash our enthusiasm. This doesn’t just mean computer science it can mean anything and everything. Once we find a group of people that share common interest and ideas as what we want to do. This will stoke the fire within us to want to learn more, do more, and get out there. Once we get that push we can encourage each other to do what we love and besides just flying under the radar we can be out there learning, helping, and teaching others about our own passion.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The White Belt

This week I read the section called “The White Belt.” The quote goes like” As a rule, each step should have a feeling of entrance. This is the beginner’s mid- the state of becoming. “I like the title of this section The White Belt. I like it because I do Tae Kwon Do and when you first start off you are a white belt. That is where everyone else starts and no matter who you are we all start off as white belts. As you take classes you learn not just from the master (which is a black belt the highest of the belts) but you also learn from everyone else as well. Taking Tae Kwon Do classes we all learn from each other no matter what belt you are. This section of the book takes everything you know and tells you that you don’t know anything. Which is true because when you are learning you don’t know everything. There are times when you are working on a code and it becomes a 30 line code and you think you did it the best way however there are some people who can take that 30 lines of code and just make it into 10 lines and some can even do it with 1 line of code. Just like the example in the book that shows the different solutions of how to write the code that generates random numbers for the United Kingdom’s National Lottery. This also goes for the blackbelts because even though you may know a lot you do not know everything. Technology changes rapidly and then there are different concepts and people that are just better at doing certain things that you. So you should not stop the search for knowledge and we should continue to try learning from each other just like how a white belt learns from each other, their pears, and their masters. Everyone has their different skills and different strengths and weakness so that means when you work as a team they can help cover your weakness and improve your strength

 

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint Retrospective 2

This week’s sprint retrospective we finally figured out what we are doing.  We started to talk about what we wanted to do for the project. Looking at the Trello board there were quite a few options. However, since Eric had some experience with encryption services we decided to work on the encryption for the website. While we were reading the google doc to see what they wanted us to do for this project. We noticed that they wanted to be able go to download a certain patient information before they were to go out onto the field because whenever they were to work on the field the internet would cut off and it would impact their work dramatically. So, we know that since they are taking sensitive information with them outside they have the risk of it getting stolen.  With this information, we wanted to have an encryption that is not just some username password but also a keygen so that way it would last a few weeks or however long the doctor would want the information on the tablet to be accessible on the tablet but after that it would get locked out where you would not be able to access the information at all. We then started to look up what kind of library’s we could use to make this encryption such as crypto-js, forge, bcryptjs, and webcrypto. We sent a message on the slack asking what kind of encryption that they have already used or would like us to use and they are fine with us choosing. We then set up on our Trello board what each and everyone has to research and write a sample project with the assigned library. Moving forward we just want to be able to work on our communication with each other and how we would be able to share the information that we have with not just each other but also with the rest of the class. Throughout the week all I have done was read though the code and to see what it does. Reading though the code it looks like they have some kind of implication for security however it looks very basic.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint Retrospective 1

 

For this sprint retrospective there isn’t much to talk about because we were just going over the basics of how we are going to work together and setting up the server for our team to work on. During the sprint meeting we talked about the little things that we would like to change. Such as how we can change how our trello board works such as we put up all of the things we need to do and then put our names on the corresponding things we had done and did. Next, we talked about how we are going to push any of the code that we will be doing ourselves onto the git hub and when we should do it. We all decided to push it whenever we meet at least for now since we are still getting to know how each other works as a team. Finally, we went onto the google doc at the end of the meeting and just talked a reviewed the stories for ng-amrs. Just trying to keep ourselves ahead of the curve and started talking about how we can do this project. Throughout the week I just worked on the assignment leading up to setting up the server and getting to know my team more. Some of the things that did help me out throughout the sprints are the slack board and my teammates. For now I don’t see any issues working  with my team they are all great people and we are testing the waters of how we should be coordinating how we work and what we should do.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Your first language

This week I am going to write about the single pattern form the book which first starts off with “your first language” this pattern talks about people who first want to start to program or have very little experience programming so that only know one or two languages. In this pattern the problem that these people face is that they feel like they must write programs in a specific programing language and be up to the same standard as their teammates however they don’t know much or as well as the other people working in their group. This part of the chapter tells the readers that they should just pick a language and become fluent in it. No matter what language you choose the basic problem-solving skills that you get from it would be able to be used in other langue’s. One of the major tips that I believe works really well is that you don’t have to learn this language by yourself. Find someone who has mastered the language and talk to them about it. You should be able to ask them for tips and tricks about the programming language. Even though you don’t see them every single day if u see them once a week it can improve your knowledge of the language. Once you learn enough code to start writing your own stuff you can start running test, tweaking, and experimenting your code. With this you can learn what can break the code and learn the limit of the code. You also aren’t limited in learning the language you can also learn about how other people’s libraries work and over time you can test points to new library’s and see the functionalities of them. A really good advice that this pattern talks about is talk to people who have mastered multiple languages and get their input on how and why they choose whatever language to learn first. I like this pattern and what they talk about because with this people who want to start programming it isn’t something that you have to naturally gifted to be able to learn and understand. This shows that people like them struggles to learn these things and all they had to do was choose one program and find someone to be able to talk to about it. Everyone learns at their own pace and their own language so that way anyone can learn programming and its not hard to do.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Chapter One

Chapter One of Apprenticeship patters was a very helpful and interesting reading. For the most part I agreed with mostly everything this chapter has talked about. I love the idea that programmers are broken down into three different categories which are the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master. Within these different categories I still believe that I am an apprentice. As an apprentice I aim to keep learning new programming languages and to expand my knowledge for me, myself, and I. So, I am always looking for tutors, “masters”, and any kind of outside sources to help me learn as much as I can. Next stage would be the journeyman. These people are still trying to improve themselves and their knowledge of programming language however they are educated and experienced enough that they can talk to other journeyman and interact with other people. Finally, there are the masters who has reach the point in their lives that they are proficient enough in programming (however still learning because you can always teach an old dog new tricks.) these are the people who become mentors, teachers, project heads. They are the people that the apprentices and journeyman aspire to be and look to for help.

 

There was also a section of the chapter where it talks about the community of practice united and defined by overlapping values. Few of them are things I believe that a lot of new programmers should follow which is “A willingness to experiment and be proven wrong.” This is very important because we should not be afraid to make mistakes. With mistakes comes a learning/teaching experience. This shows you that there are things that you don’t know and that is fine because you are not supposed to know everything. If you are willing to make those risks then that just means that you accepted that you are not the best and is willing to learn from others. I also like the value that talks about “A belief that it is better to share what we know than to create scarcity by hording it.” I honestly think that this is something a lot of people should follow I understand with today’s society money rules the world. However, knowledge should not cost an arm and a leg to get. With education we should be able to get information from others to help each other out and to increase productivity with each other.

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Introduction

This is the introduction post for class CS-448

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road of CS by Henry_Tang_blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.