Category Archives: CS-348

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Remote Work

     Ever since the pandemic, the modern workplace has gone through many shifts. The realization that workers can still be effective members of the company from their home has changed a lot of people’s perspective on the corporate work environment. Many workers have pushed for remote work to become a staple of the modern job market. It is easy to see the appeal of remote work: No commute, stuffy office, or even stuffier dress code sounds very appealing to me. I personally enjoy the ease of access to one’s job right in their own home. All of that said, the infrastructure for remote work has been in the works for longer than we realized that there was a need for it. In the modern era, cloud computing has become a necessity for almost any job regardless of whether it is remote or not. Services such as AWS, Azure, and Git hub/lab has supplemented developers with the tools to contribute to their workplace from anywhere on the globe. Now teams can be comprised of any developer within the company and can pull from about any talent pool. This comes with its own set of unique challenges though, as remote work moves developers from a singular office space to their respective homes. Balancing time zones, long-distance communication between team members, increased risk to cybersecurity and more come with the territory of all your developers working from their house. Fortunately, Cloud computing answers some of these problems by providing more security and reliability to development teams. Azure and AWS provide secure repositories for teams and reliable access to their work wherever they are. Then there are Applications such as Zoom, which provides communication between team members and can even facilitate daily scrum meetings if needed. Developers have been using git for a long time, and it has served to supplement collaboration in software development. While the pandemic is over and most companies have tried to push their employees to go back to the office, remote work has become a fixture in the modern work landscape. For some companies, it is an economic option since it is cheaper to subscribe to several cloud services than to rent an entire office space. For other companies, it is simply the efficient option. I believe companies should incorporate these innovative technologies to expand their reach, and to shift society further down the path of better work life balance. The past few years have shown us that the old ninetofive has become outdated, and possibly unsustainable.  

https://socpub.com/articles/how-can-cloud-computing-enable-remote-teams-work-more-productively-17895

https://aws.amazon.com/application-hosting/benefits/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-azure

From the blog CS@Worcester Alejandro Professional Blog by amontesdeoca and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Late-Night Coding: Personal Experience Tips & Tricks.

As final’s week approaches I find myself coding through the night more and more accompanied by my two best friends, my IDE, and the lo-fi girl(if you know you know). Late-night coding sessions are practically a rite of passage in the computer science world as the thrill of solving problems and watching your code come to life is extremely rewarding. However, the toll it takes on your physical and mental health is also extremely undeniable. This semester I have had the privilege of sleeping most mornings as my classes and part-time jobs are in the afternoon or past that, so sleeping late at night has not bothered me as much as it would have if I had early-morning obligations. Even though I’m getting around 5-7 hours of sleep, the irregular sleep patterns and long hours in front of my computer bring challenges that are worthy of discussion.

  1. Irregular Sleep Patterns:
    Late-night coding more than often leads to irregular sleep patterns which disrupt the circadian rhythm, this results in fatigue and creates difficulties in concentrating let alone long-term health issues.
  2. Sedentary Lifestyle:
    Long periods of coding mean long periods of sitting. The sedentary lifestyle created as a result can contribute to health problems like obesity(my excuse for getting a beer belly at 20), back pain, and even cardiovascular issues. This can also decrease your stamina to the point that even going through 2 flights of stairs can cause you to have short breath.
  3. Mental Burnout:
    When you keep pushing yourself too hard for extended periods of time the only thing you’re gonna end up with is having mental burnout. Have you ever gone to class and could not remember how to write a for loop? That’s exactly what mental burnout is. The lack of motivation, increased stress, and plunged creativity are just a couple of the symptoms that can throw all your hours of coding into the trash bin.

Even though these challenges might seem harsh at first, there are some practices you could follow that ease the strain on your body during this hard work.
Creating a consistent sleep routine will lead to better health. You can sleep even during “unconventional” hours, it just matters that it remains consistent and your body will thank you for the predictability.
Taking regular breaks can combat the negative effects of prolonged work sessions. The most popular practice is the 20-20-20 rule in which every 20 minutes you look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds to reduce eye strain. Personally, I have never liked this rule as getting away from work every 20 minutes really disrupts my workflow and most of the time it distracts me from solving particular problems that I may have been working on, so I came up with my own method. Every 50 minutes, I give myself 20 minutes of break time dedicated to anything else besides sitting in front of the computer. Stand up, do some stretching, grab a bottle of water, grab a snack, open up a window, and just stare outside. If you’re at the 50-minute mark but don’t feel like disrupting your workflow? Continue working but when the time to take the breaks comes again give yourself 5 extra minutes for every 10 minutes you kept working.
Doing something physical during the break time is even better. You can do simple exercises that do not require much room or any equipment. My personal favorites:Toe touches, that thing you do where you pretend you’re a sea lion(I forget the name of the stretch), and push-ups.

In one of my previous blog entries “Scruming through the semester”, I mentioned that breaking the work into smaller more manageable tasks helps in productivity, that advice is valuable here again as this not only makes your work more achievable but it also prevents burnouts.

What’s more important is to know when to stop. Start recognizing the burnout signs and know when to step away. Good work comes from a healthy mind and more than often the best solution to a hard problem is some good quality sleep. It’s easy to prioritize code over your well-being in the fast-paced world of computer science. However, keeping your mental well-being and physical health is a crucial step to sustain success in this field. Incorporating good and healthy habits into your coding routines can ensure that your overnight sessions are productive and sustainable in the long run. As one of my good professors has said: “You can save your code and work on it later, you can’t save your health and load it when you get sick.”.

Ano out.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Anairdo's WSU Computer Science Blog by anairdoduri and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Effects of AI on the Human Workforce

Automation is an often-overlooked concept when it comes to the study of how human civilization has evolved, which, is a shame, since it has had such a crucial role in making the modern world. The invention of farm equipment meant agriculture required less labor, allowing people to focus their lives on education. These people would go on to create further innovations, creating a cycle in which people create new technologies that give subsequent generations more opportunities to design their own creations.

The automotive industry is a great modern example. Several decades ago, car production plants employed millions, while now, these same factories almost exclusively use robots for the manual labor tasks previously delegated to humans. On the one hand, this has many benefits. Cars are now easily affordable to the regular person and production is now streamlined and faster. On the other hand, however, those jobs working on the factory line are gone, and those previously working on them are left without work.

As artificial intelligence explodes into the modern world, this same process is already beginning to take place. According to Yahoo Finance, as of July 2023, almost a quarter million employees working in the tech sector have been laid off due to being replaced by AI. The idea of replacing expensive employees with comparatively free AI labor is an extremely enticing opportunity for business executives. Just as robots replaced human workers on assembly lines, AI programs have begun to replace human workers sitting in the office.

This is not a phenomenon exclusive to the tech sector either. If you’ve ever had to talk on the phone with customer service for any large company, the voice you first hear after dialing often is no longer a human, but rather a computer. By using voice-to-text software powered by machine learning, calls can be filtered by issue type, and automatically directed to the proper department, where a human can address the caller as required. Sometimes, you won’t even talk to a person at all.

For the sake of clarity; the advancement of machine learning will not lead to artificial intelligence replacing the entire human workforce. Remember back to the previous point about how automation led to the loss of jobs in the automotive industry? This also led to new jobs being created, from designing and programming robots to assemble cars, to technicians maintaining these robots when they inevitably break. The same can be said for artificial intelligence. While self-driving cars may some day replace taxi drivers, this would also lead to job openings in developing and maintaining the software behind them.

The idea that AI will replace humans completely is a scary pitfall to get into, however, this isn’t a situation that humans haven’t experienced before. As technology grows and develops, so does society. Usually for the better.

Works Cited

Bizouati-Kennedy, Yael. “How AI Is Already Causing Layoffs in the Tech Industry.” Yahoo Finance, Yahoo, 7 July 2023, finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-already-causing-layoffs-tech-181221028.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJAmzoKggZHQoJa3SOThKQQJGXifMZImGxyqNzN0QuSfct2VP3Hogm4jAVSBaWYVCO3qG2EFiZ3w9vvVmynD1s7Z-Azpd6vHXVAQGqJzbb8F49e13O-O_d13SdyEm5vAzsdi3hQ3Pni6tJrWmh3Y64m4Fzd_igLHjv54uf8kMykf.

Kothari, Jash. “Artificial Intelligence: Cause of Unemployment.” GeeksforGeeks, 16 Aug. 2019, http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/artificial-intelligence-cause-of-unemployment/.

“Will AI Replace Humans in Customer Service?” Www.ultimate.ai, http://www.ultimate.ai/blog/customer-experience/will-ai-replace-humans-in-customer-service#:~:text=It.

From the blog Butler Software Construction, Design, and Architecture by Griffin Butler and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Week 11 Choosing a programing Language

I was thinking about our recent classwork activities and our own project and thought about what goes into selecting a programming language. I always assumed it was a preference but sometimes some languages have more benefits than others that can help you in the long run instead of choosing one you prefer. In addition, you gain more knowledge not sticking to one but being able to adapt to others. That is why I decided to find an article about choosing a programming language for your specific project.

This article uses a perfect analogy of how building a house is like choosing your programming language. For example the specifications of the house, what materials will you use, and where you want to build your house. You need to ask yourself similar questions like what kind of project, the development budget, and the complexity of the project. My main takeaway was to have a main objective of your project and have a clear definition of what you intend to do so you may pinpoint the type of application you want to create. Every language has a main focused application purpose like Front End Development: JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, 2D Game Development: JavaScript or C#, and 3D Game Development: C# or C++. There is a large list but being able to envision your project will prevent mistakes from occuring. For this specific project, I believe the article makes a valid point that the development time limit is a great concern in choosing a programming language. With a deadline, you can’t just slack around or try to learn a new programming language with the time constraints so choose wisely. 

Reading this article allowed me to open my eyes to each programming language’s specific uses. I knew that some languages were best suited for different things but allowing me to see the variety was eye-opening. After reading this article I am now able to choose what programming language I will use for my project more efficiently. I know it isn’t the main focus of the project but it’s a step forward. In addition made me think about the small things like security, performance, and maintainability. You may not think about these things as soon as you start but may become big concerns later down the line without the proper planning ahead. For example, performance will only be taken into account late into the project after there has been ample time placed on the project. Maybe the specific application you making doesn’t work efficiently this will hurt meeting your deadline without proper precaution.     

From the blog cs-wsu – DCO by dcastillo360 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.