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.