For this third quarter’s professional development, i read the Treblle post, “How to Structure an Express.js REST API with Best Practices” (https://treblle.com/blog/egergr). The article mostly just talks about on how to properly organize and build RESTful APIs using Express.js while maintaining clean, scalable, and modular code. It covers some key principles like separating app and server logic, implementing a layered architecture, structuring routes and controllers clearly, and designing the API in a way that’s easy to maintain and expand. It also makes mention on the importance of using Docker for containerization and environment consistency, which is essential for deploying APIs reliably across different systems.

I picked this specific resource because i think it ties closely with what we’ve learned in class earlier, taking into account the things like modularity, separation of concerns, and maintainable software design. It helps that we were doing class exercises when it comes to building small web services and understanding how system components interact(at least tangentially when it comes to the guestinfobackend stuff), so reading about how Express.js projects are structured in real-world settings gave a lot of context for people such as myself interested in backend or full-stack development, it’s the kind of practical foundation that helps turn classroom principles into actual coding habits.

From the article, I learned that Express.js isn’t just about setting up endpoints quickly; it’s about creating a clear, layered structure where each part of the API has its own responsibility. In one instance, it recommended dividing the project into three layers: a web layer (for routes and middleware), a service layer (for handling logic and validation), for the other a data layer (for managing database access). I’d say this structure kind of keeps your code modular and easier to debug. Another thing I think is useful was the reminder to containerize the API using docker, which helps standardize development and production environments so you can avoid those “it does/doesn’t work on my machine” problems.

I’d say the article reinforces many of the software architecture concepts we’ve referenced in class, such as modularity, abstraction, and loose coupling. A modular API design definitely makes it easier to scale, test, and maintain which at the end of the day is really the heart of software construction. It also reminded me that tools like Docker play a key role in supporting architecture by making deployment consistent and repeatable, which is just as important as how the code itself is structured.

As a whole, i’d say this article helped me better understand what good backend architecture looks like in practice. It gave me a clearer sense of how to build modular, scalable APIs using Express.js and Docker and i can somewhat see how those principles might carry over into any kind of future coursework and professional projects that i might be part of.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CSTips by Jamaal Gedeon and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I wrote my blog based on “What is encapsulation in object-oriented programming (OOP)?” from Cincom Systems Blog. The blog defines encapsulation as bundling data, specifically attributes, and the methods that operate on that data into a single unit, while restricting access to some of the class’s components. The author explains well what we learned in previous classes, that using access modifiers like private and protected, a class can hide their internal state while exposing only controlled interfaces to the outside world. It goes on to describe benefits of encapsulation. Improved modularity, protected internal state, easier debugging and testing, and cleaner interfaces. The article also gives good practices based on the idea of encapsulation.

This blog directly relates to many things that we do in this class, practicing OOP and clean coding. I picked this article because it not only defines the concept of encapsulation but also connects it with practical ideas in software design and maintenance. I felt this article would help remind me on the theory of encapsulation and OOP.

Reading this article reminded me that encapsulation isn’t simply making variables private and using setters and getters but it’s about letting the class control its own state and hide implementation details from the outside world. This blog made me review some of my past projects where I had too many exposed public fields that made the code less clean. My past projects are definitely not written well with encapsulation in mind so reviewing this topic was extremely helpful.

Going forward, in personal coding and team projects, I expect to apply encapsulation and OOP in general by designing classes so that their internal data is private or protected, and only the necessary operations are public. Ensuring that external code interacts with objects via meaningful methods rather than manipulating internals directly.

To summarize this blog. It helped me remember what encapsulation actually means as a core OOP design principle rather than just an after thought. Applying what I learned from this blog, I expect to improve upon writing code that is cleaner and less error prone.

https://www.cincom.com/blog/smalltalk/encapsulation-in-object-oriented-programming/

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

For this post I listened to the Sourcetoad podcast called, Leveraging Frameworks for Your Software Development Project. This podcast features three software developers who work for Sourcetoad, a software consulting and development firm, by which they discuss software frameworks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik4d2Jf7Rik&t=1539s

To begin with frameworks we must define what exactly is a framework. A framework is collections of pre-built code that builds the blueprint of the app; furthermore, without need to write the code yourself. Frameworks are tremendously useful because with any coding application, you are trying to help solve a problem. To initiate any project, there are these kinds of “price of entry” such as login, authentication, security, database, and server to name a few. With these examples, the framework gives you these things right off the bat, pre-built modules, which allows you to start faster on the solution.

Now the best part about frameworks is that the vast majority are free. Free being that the code is open source; software made by the software community for the software community. Anyone can view, edit, and modify the software. 

Now what would be an instance you would not want to utilize a framework. Say for instance you have a simple application that utilizes a framework, but while you run the code you notice it is rendering slower than expected. This is because with any kind of framework you are getting a lot of pre-built code, which you might not utilize which will slow down the rendering time. Wonderfully put in the podcast, “the great thing about a framework you get a lot of stuff, but you also get a lot of stuff.”  

With frameworks you can build on top of them and one popular method of doing this is by using a CMS: Content Management System (frontend and backend). A CMS enables users to manage the content on a website themselves, without needing to know how to code; gives non technical people the ability to make changes on the website instantly. A con of this is that it is vendor locked in, meaning it cannot transition easily. 

There is also a headless CMS. This is responsible for editing and storing of the content, but is not responsible for how the content is presented visually; it has no frontend, only backend. Some pros of a headless CMS is that it’s an easier content manager, gives developers more freedom to develop code at scale and also, content can be created once and published everywhere.

Overall, I’ve heard the word “framework” get tossed around in the computer science world, but never truly did have a grasp on what it really was. From listening to this podcast, I feel great about what it is and eager to start a project using a framework and even more so exploring the world of CMS and headless CMS, once I feel comfortable with frameworks.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Programming with Santiago by Santiago Donadio and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

 Hello! For my second quarter blog, I read a separate blog written by Yung Han Jeong, titled “Spaghetti Deconstructed: Lessons from my first refactoring“. As its name suggests, this blog talks about Yung’s personal experiences and advice pertaining to refactoring. For those who don’t know, refactoring is essentially improving existing code in a way that doesn’t affect it’s functionality. This can be as simple as changing variable names, all the way to completely restructuring the program. In our class this semester, for a very large portion of what we will be doing, refactoring is an integral part of it. I would say at this point I am pretty comfortable with the topic, however I figured that I would like some sort of anecdotal, first-hand account of someone’s actual experiences with it, as everything we have been doing has been in a classroom setting. 

Yung’s blog recounts her experiences in refactoring some of her earliest code written when she was an entry-level developer, namely in her horror at how bad it used to be. It got her thinking about what she could have done to improve her code, which inspired her to blog about the biggest changes she thinks would make the difference (she provides four examples which she calls “pasta”, “sauce”, “meatballs”, and “cheese”, I don’t think I need to explain that). Firstly (pasta), she talks about the importance of having descriptive variable names. She argues that while it is enticing to have simple variable names that you might not see the need to go into detail about as you are familiar with the code, it is always worth the extra effort to either make them more descriptive, or to comment an explanation about all of them (or both!). Next (sauce), she hammers in the importance of commenting out the entirety of your code. It’s something all cs students have been pestered about endlessly, but it is one of the single most important things you can do to improve your code, being able to quickly understand what a method/class/etc. does saves so much time in the long run, outweighing the extra time you spend writing the comment. Her third point (meatballs) ties into this in that she recommends keeping most if not all debugging statements. She argues that once they served their purpose, they can simply be commented out and referenced in the future. Lastly (cheese), she emphasizes the importance of revisiting code “soon and often”. 

Admittedly, the advice Yung gives is pretty rudimentary. When I found this blog I thought it would talk about refactoring in the way we have in class, where we focus more on the structure side of things. However, reading this made me realize that this is very much refactoring as well. Sometimes the best thing you can do with your code is improve on the simple things, like naming schemes and comments, something Yung, an actual software dev, seems to find important enough to write a blog about. I am happy I found this blog; while I didn’t exactly learn anything ground-breaking, I realized that when refactoring, sometimes improving on the simple things is the best course of action to take. 

From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

 Hello! For my second quarter blog, I read a separate blog written by Yung Han Jeong, titled “Spaghetti Deconstructed: Lessons from my first refactoring“. As its name suggests, this blog talks about Yung’s personal experiences and advice pertaining to refactoring. For those who don’t know, refactoring is essentially improving existing code in a way that doesn’t affect it’s functionality. This can be as simple as changing variable names, all the way to completely restructuring the program. In our class this semester, for a very large portion of what we will be doing, refactoring is an integral part of it. I would say at this point I am pretty comfortable with the topic, however I figured that I would like some sort of anecdotal, first-hand account of someone’s actual experiences with it, as everything we have been doing has been in a classroom setting. 

Yung’s blog recounts her experiences in refactoring some of her earliest code written when she was an entry-level developer, namely in her horror at how bad it used to be. It got her thinking about what she could have done to improve her code, which inspired her to blog about the biggest changes she thinks would make the difference (she provides four examples which she calls “pasta”, “sauce”, “meatballs”, and “cheese”, I don’t think I need to explain that). Firstly (pasta), she talks about the importance of having descriptive variable names. She argues that while it is enticing to have simple variable names that you might not see the need to go into detail about as you are familiar with the code, it is always worth the extra effort to either make them more descriptive, or to comment an explanation about all of them (or both!). Next (sauce), she hammers in the importance of commenting out the entirety of your code. It’s something all cs students have been pestered about endlessly, but it is one of the single most important things you can do to improve your code, being able to quickly understand what a method/class/etc. does saves so much time in the long run, outweighing the extra time you spend writing the comment. Her third point (meatballs) ties into this in that she recommends keeping most if not all debugging statements. She argues that once they served their purpose, they can simply be commented out and referenced in the future. Lastly (cheese), she emphasizes the importance of revisiting code “soon and often”. 

Admittedly, the advice Yung gives is pretty rudimentary. When I found this blog I thought it would talk about refactoring in the way we have in class, where we focus more on the structure side of things. However, reading this made me realize that this is very much refactoring as well. Sometimes the best thing you can do with your code is improve on the simple things, like naming schemes and comments, something Yung, an actual software dev, seems to find important enough to write a blog about. I am happy I found this blog; while I didn’t exactly learn anything ground-breaking, I realized that when refactoring, sometimes improving on the simple things is the best course of action to take. 

From the blog Joshua's Blog by Joshua D. and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.