The End of Chapter 314
18 Dec 2020
The semester has finally come to an end. I did it…hopefully. I have finished a semester of ICS 314! I have learned a lot in this class when it comes to application development. I even created my first web application for my final project. But besides general coding knowledge, I also learned much more as an ICS 314 student.
Manage Your Work
Working on the group project especially at home served as a valuable lesson for project management. Having a well-structured plan is important when it comes to tackling any sort of problem, not just application development. It does not matter if you are by yourself or with a group, you need a plan especially when in groups. When working as a group everyone needs to be on the same page. Proper communication is key. Communicate frequently and effectively. Also, do not be afraid to ask questions. While working on my group project, there were so many times I did not understand the way we were doing things. I constantly asked questions on why my team decided to store data a certain way. My intent was not to make my fellow group members feel like their implementation was bad. My intent was to clarify my understanding of their code and make sure issues would not arise.
Another valuable lesson I learned as a part of project management is to write down your goals and divide larger work into smaller sections. This was something I took home when working on my final project. Personally, I hate writing things down and making a to-do list. It is not a good habit of mine but I tend to work all over the place and as a result, I can easily get overwhelmed and lose focus. My group created a Project Board in GitHub to plan out and delegate issues we needed to work on. Doing this made working on this project so much easier especially dividing large tasks into smaller ones. It made me work on the project more since I was much more inclined to work on multiple sections over time rather than a huge chunk all at once.
Stick to Standards
Not sticking to a coding standard is like having a messy room. If there is no structure for where you put things in your room, you will probably spend a lot of time looking for lost objects. I myself am constantly looking for my keys and wallet all the time in my room. Using ESlint as a coding standard has taught me the importance of sticking to a set of rules. While it can be a hassle to keep things like your room neat and orderly, it becomes worth it when you no longer need to franticly look for your keys so you are not late for work. The same goes for programming. Keeping everything neat and organized from the start saves you a lot of hassle down the road. You’ll spend less time wondering where things are if everything is in order. Programmers are constantly troubleshooting lines of code and coding standards make finding errors much easier and prevent them from even happening. Although I might be lazy and hate keeping things clean, I dislike looking for things a whole lot more. I can tell you from experience that staring at lines of code looking for your mistake is not fun and is very time consuming. Keepings things clean and orderly is not a waste of time, looking for things because of your mess is.