So it’s been a hot second since I set this blog up, and I apologize for the silence. Been busy focusing on homework and figuring out my work situation.

But with that aside, I just wanna talk about my past with GitHub and repositories before this class. I’ve actually used GitHub many times before, because I collaborate with a modding community. We focus on modding a video game known as Luxor, a classic PC game from the 2000s that I’ll share gameplay of below.

A lot of effort has been put into these mods, and I’ve contributed to a lot of them, and even made my own. I have no recordings of it, unfortunately, but I swear it exists, haha.

Though as of recent, we’ve been discussing how to properly archive mods. For the longest time, we’ve been using our Discord server for modding to store them, but that poses an issue: Many people might not have access to Discord due to their countries, operating systems, or various other reasons.

This led to some people moving over to GitHub, which was one of my first times learning how it actually properly worked. Before this, I simply downloaded stuff from it, but I learned the basics of how to push and pull repositories and have a local clone to work on and collaborate with multiple people.

Currently one of the biggest projects being developed using GitHub is OpenSMCE (https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE) which is a game engine being built off of the Love2D engine to allow us to have an opensource engine to work off of for our mods, as opposed to the limited and clunky engine we use currently with the original game.

The reason I discuss this is actually because the new information I’m learning in these classes is inspiring me to help work on and learn the process of being in a team working on a software/engine development with Jakub, the developer of OpenSMCE. This has been an application I’ve been very excited to see have a full release, and being able to say I contributed to it and helped it reach that state would be amazing.

Hopefully as the semester goes on, with the lessons I’m learning about how to create an application as well as work in a collaborative environment, I’ll end up contributing to this project, and maybe I can even use this blog as a way to discuss the ongoing developments and issues we’ve been facing with the development of OpenSMCE. It would be interesting, and I will probably reach out to Jakub within the next week about it.

Anyways, that’s all I have for this week, until next time!

-Tempura

From the blog CS@Worcester – You're Telling Me A Shrimp Wrote This Code?! by tempurashrimple and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

https://www.atlassian.com/microservices/microservices-architecture/microservices-vs-monolith

Since learning about different software architecture styles like the monolithic architecture, the client-server architecture and the microservices architecture, I’ve been curious how large-scale applications transition from one architecture to another as the project grows in scale. I found this blog post on the Atlassian website breaking down the differences between the monolithic architecture and the microservices architecture, as well as telling the story of Netflix’s innovative migration from a monolithic architecture to a microservices architecture.

The article begins with the example of Netflix’s transition between architectures. Netflix was growing rapidly by 2009 and needed to expand its software infrastructure to meet the massive demand. Before “microservices” as a term was in wide usage, Netflix was one of the first major companies to migrate to a microservices architecture, and in 2015 earned a JAX Special Jury award for its successful deployment. Netflix’s new architecture would model itself on DevOps, defined by Amazon as “the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity (https://aws.amazon.com/devops/what-is-devops/#:~:text=DevOps%20is%20the%20combination%20of,development%20and%20infrastructure%20management%20processes.)”.

Following the story of Netflix’s change in infrastructure model, the article continues with an explanation of the monolithic architecture style. The monolithic architecture is a traditional design, which is defined by the application being housed in a single self-contained server. This architecture is simple to understand and easy to use as a foundation for your application. The major drawback of the monolith, however, is the difficulty in updating the application. Making changes to the code base requires bringing the entire service offline. Monolith architectures are not scalable with the growth of the application either.

The microservices architecture addresses some of the disadvantages that come along with a monolith architecture. The application is divided into independent services each with their own databases and methods. With this architecture model, only the components of the application that require changes need to be taken down, leaving the other components of the application free to continue working.

One inherent barrier to using the microservices architecture is the expense of multiple machines to host the different microservices, as well as storage space for their accompanying databases. It may only be beneficial for an application to transition to a microservices model once it has reached a certain scale. Small to mid-size applications may be perfectly well served by monolith architectures for much less cost than hosting the application across a microservices architecture.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Michael's Programming Blog by mikesprogrammingblog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I recently came across a fascinating article that I believe directly relates to our course material as it is the focus of our current Design Patterns Homework. In this blog post, I will provide a summary, share my reasons for selecting this resource, offer my personal insights, and discuss how this newfound knowledge can be applied to our future practice as software developers.

The resource I found is an article titled “A Beginner’s Guide to the Strategy Design Pattern,” available on the FreeCodeCamp website. This article serves as an introductory guide to the Strategy Design Pattern in software development. It outlines the pattern’s purpose, components, benefits, use cases, and best practices for implementation. The core idea of this pattern is to encapsulate a family of algorithms, making them interchangeable at runtime.

Why I Chose This Resource

I selected this resource because I was struggling with understanding the homework assignment and this article helped me better understand the strategy design pattern. Moreover, the article provides practical examples and clear explanations that make it accessible to beginners like myself.

Reflections on the Content

The article begins by explaining the core concept of the Strategy Design Pattern. It emphasizes the benefits of encapsulating algorithms into interchangeable strategies, including improved code flexibility, re-usability, and simplified testing. I found this concept to be highly relevant to our studies, as it promotes clean and maintainable code, a fundamental skill for any software developer.

The article discusses real-world use cases for the Strategy Design Pattern, such as sorting algorithms, validation rules, and payment processing. These examples helped me see the pattern’s practical application in various scenarios, and I can envision using it in my future projects.

Additionally, the article provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement the Strategy Design Pattern in Java, breaking down the process into clear, manageable steps. This hands-on approach was incredibly valuable as it demonstrated how to apply the theoretical knowledge in a real coding scenario much like the one seen in the Duck Simulator.

Application to Future Practice

Understanding the Strategy Design Pattern will undoubtedly benefit us in our future practice as software developers. Here’s how:

1. Code Flexibility: By using this pattern, we can make our code more adaptable to changing requirements. It allows us to swap out different strategies at runtime, making our software systems more versatile.
2. Re-usability: The Strategy Design Pattern promotes the re-usability of code. We can create a library of interchangeable strategies that can be applied to various projects, saving time and effort.
3. Clean Code: Implementing this pattern encourages clean coding practices by separating concerns and reducing code complexity. This results in code that is easier to read, maintain, and debug.
4. Testing: With strategies separated from the main object, testing becomes more straightforward. We can test each strategy in isolation, ensuring that it functions correctly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Strategy Design Pattern is a valuable tool in software development, and I believe this article provides a solid foundation for understanding and implementing it. As future software developers, mastering design patterns like this one will be essential for creating efficient, maintainable, and flexible code. I encourage you to read the article and explore this pattern further to enhance your skills in software development.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Abe's Programming Blog by Abraham Passmore and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I’ve heard these terms a lot, concurrency and multithreading, but I never really bothered looking into what they actually do. All I’ve really known about these terms was that they make things run faster. I mostly associated multithreading with hyperthreading, I’ve known that CPUs can use multiple cores for the same application to speed up runtime and make games perform better, but I was always sort of confused about how some games have issues with actually taking advantage of modern high-end CPUs. Usually, this is fixed by some sort of modification, if it’s been written already. That being said, my association between the two is only really surface level.

Hyperthreading is really just related to the physical hardware, which makes it different from multithreading in programming. Instead, multithreading is a form of concurrency in which a program has multiple threads that can run simultaneously, with each thread having its own operations and processes that it executes. What this ultimately means is that within a program, multiple operations can be executed at the same time.

This really fascinates me coming from the perspective of only writing straightforward code. While I sort of knew intuitively that programs can probably do multiple tasks at the same time, I’ve only experienced this on the end-user side of things, rather than the individual writing the program. After looking into how threads work in Java on a BairesDev post regarding Java concurrency, I can really see how powerful of a tool concurrency can be for runtime efficiency. This post essentially goes over what concurrency is and the ‘basics’ of utilizing built-in multithreading functions in Java, along with the advantages and disadvantages that this design comes with.

Of course, it does seem like it takes a careful approach to make sure that the implementation of such a tool is actually beneficial to the project. Even with this relatively simple tutorial, I did find myself a little confused at some points, particularly at the point where Locks are introduced. Though this could be the effect of the hour at which I decided to start writing this blog post, it still stands to reason that the complexity of writing a multithreaded program may result in a more difficult development process, especially in debugging.

Regardless, I was truly fascinated by the subject matter and I’m really excited to be going over concurrency in our course (CS-343). This seems like a tool I would really like to use as I enjoy toying with logistics in video games and the like.

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

The article I chose for this week’s blog post is “What Is an Anti-Pattern?” by Andreas Schöngruber. I chose this article because it discusses what anti-patterns are, gives some examples of anti-patterns, and how to avoid them. I chose this article for this week’s blog because it fits well with the syllabus topic of anti-patterns. I found the section about recognizing and avoiding anti-patterns to be very helpful. This blog post will focus on the aforementioned section about recognizing and avoiding anti-patterns in your code.

I will first discuss the section of the article which discusses recognizing anti-patterns in your code. One method that the article mentions involves keeping an open mind and looking to others for feedback. “When identifying anti-patterns in our code or design, we must keep an open mind and question our assumptions. Sometimes, we may become attached to a solution that required a lot of time and effort, but there might be a better solution out there. To avoid this, it is helpful to seek feedback from others.” As this quote states, it is imperative not to be too attached to a process that you developed or are developing, especially if the time it takes to develop or implement this feature is more than the value that the feature is worth. Another important part of being able to mitigate the harm done by anti-patterns is knowing how to avoid them.

While being able to identify anti-patterns is incredibly important, it is also important that one knows how to prevent their occurrence in the first place. One method of doing so is by stepping back and looking at the greater picture of the project that you are working on. “When working on software projects, it is essential to be aware of common pitfalls that can lead to anti-patterns. One strategy to avoid these pitfalls is to take a step back and consider the larger context of the problem. Understanding the problem in its entirety will help in coming up with a good solution.” Instead of being hyper-focused on one part of a larger project, which could lead to anti-patterns arising in your code, its best to take a step back occasionally to make sure what you are working on is not falling into the traps of anti-patterns. Another method of preventing anti-patterns would be a divide-and-conquer approach to developing features. “Another strategy is to break down large problems into smaller pieces. Doing this can help avoid getting overwhelmed and make it easier to spot issues and inefficiencies.” Using this strategy can be very beneficial because it can allow you to see anti-patterns as they appear in your code.

Article: https://www.baeldung.com/cs/anti-patterns

From the blog CS@Worcester – P. McManus Worcester State CS Blog by patrickmcmanus1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Through the duration of this class, we have worked a lot with different types of classes, abstract and concrete, as well as interfaces to better design the code. It was not a new concept to me, as I have learned some of the basics to these in prior classes. However, I never truly understood the benefits and the right time to incorporate each. The articles I found give a simple explanation on the distinctions between concrete classes, abstract classes, and interfaces, as well as the correct situations to use them in.

A concrete class, sometimes just referred to as a class, is used to specify any entity. It also can work as a blueprint for all entities with the same attributes. An abstract class and interfaces are similar and was often confusing for me to distinguish the two of them at first. An abstract class will have methods implemented inside the body, but abstract methods will not have the body of the method inside this class. For example, the duck class I was working with for Homework 2 has the abstract class Duck and the abstract method display(). The body of the method is not present in the abstract class because the different concrete classes implementing Duck uses display() to show different messages. An interface only has the method names included for classes to implement with the interface but does not have any body of the methods. This is what partially distinguishes abstract classes from interfaces, as abstract classes can have concrete methods defined in them while interfaces can only have the method names defined. Interfaces are handy when only needing to enforce a contract. Whoever implements this interface will provide an implementation of all the methods. Abstract classes are helpful when only needing partial implementation, which leaves the responsibility of implementing non-useful methods from the class.

The phrase “program to an interface, not an implementation” is new to me and I am starting to make more sense of it. Concrete classes are the actual implementation, interfaces are the contract, and abstract classes are a trade-off between both. Being able to fully program these three structures into the program helps with maintainability, extensibility, and testability. When programming to an interface, you are forced to split the program into subsystems, with each subsystem responsible for certain tasks and having the ability to communicate with each other to complete the whole task. The key to making the program more flexible is focusing the design on what the code is doing rather than how it does it.

I decided to pick this topic for my blog because I had always had a good idea of how to physically write programs to function correctly. However, something that I never focused on before was the structure of the code which can help when needing to develop the program further after initial creation. Most of our time spent in the class so far has been focusing on this concept and it is proving to be very important the more a program continues to develop.

Program to Interface, Not Implementation – Beginner’s Tutorial for Understanding Interface, Abstract Class and Concrete Class – CodeProject

Programming to an Interface – DZone

From the blog CS@Worcester – Jason Lee Computer Science Blog by jlee3811 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.