One of the aspect that I like about the Software Engineering class is the team based projects. As a team you’ll realize any shortcomings you have as a programmer or find skills that you can improve on over the course of completing the application. The course, ICS 414, is a great class, I was excited to enroll in another software engineering class after taking ICS 314. I thought it will be like ICS 314 where we didn’t have a client, so the objective was simple and that is to build a functioning app. I like that this class had an actual client that gave specific requirements and feedbacks for each milestones after presentations because it shows that there are different ways in upgrading our applications. Furthermore, the class kind of mimicked the experience in working in a software engineering industry, the class did not only let us work on building our application but it also challenged my soft skills and how I would work with different people with different skills.
Similar to the real world or working in the Software Engineering industry, you will meet and work with different people. Not everyone is on the same level of programming skills and communication with the members is always important. My group would meet twice a week and in those days we talk about updates or questions that people might have encountered. When my group and I were first introduced to the type of application we were building, we all had no idea about carbon footprint. We all had so many questions, but despite having no knowledge about carbon footprint, we were able to create a theme and chose appropriate colors for our application with enough brainstorming as a group. We all took small steps to understand everything as a group, even in using any programs available in react, like the Chart.js or react-smart-table, that may be useful for our application. I learned that I should not be afraid to ask for advice or help, there are people in your group that are willing to find bugs in your code or explain some functions that you don’t understand. Moreover, by not saying any problem that you find on the code will just bring down your group.
The hardest part we had in making our application was thinking of ways for a customer to keep using our application consistently and if there is not enough interest in an app, the app would fail its purpose. So far in my computer science classes, I have only tackled on homework prompts or creating a code that serves no purpose other than to be graded. In this project we have a client and requirements to meet, instead of thinking in a programmer’s perspective we all thought of how a customer would navigate through the website and other incentives that will make them stay. My group thought of different ways in keeping future customers entertained when using our app, which I thought was very different in a way I think about most of the time when I do some of the codes I have done. We thought of having them create goals and implement growing trees every time they saved greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, to keep the navigation simple we removed redundant pages and created pop up pages for a simple easy access in inputing and removing their data. Our website end up quite minimalistic but very pleasing to the eye, the navigation is simple and friendly to use, and we included some incentives to keep customers motivated in using the app.
I really enjoyed the class and I had a lot of fun with my group. Through the course of building our application, I found a lot of things I should improve on, however, looking back at my previous experience, I also I grew a lot in terms of my skills as a programmer. I also learned more about carbon footprint and all the vehicles or things that affects it, as well as different ways to save carbon in our daily lives. I also liked having a small peak to real world experience in developing an application with a client. This was such a rare opportunity that I look forward to experiencing more in the future.