CST 438 Week 1

 

What did you expect a course in Software Engineering would cover?   

Before the class even begins, I was intrigued with the course. Based on the title, it suggests that we are going to develop a software from the beginning to the end, from backend to frontend as well as testing. Moreover, I hope to learn about perspectives that I may have missed while developing my personal project (which I am used as capstone project).

After completing week 1, how has your opinion changed? 

My opinion has not changed but reinforced. What caught me off guard the most was the reading assignment of "Software Engineering at Google." I aim to be game developer, which is also software. Here are what I found:

1.  The tradeoff: in my project, many times the speed or performance are not the priority. There are many more aspects such as maintainability, readability that we need to account for.

2. The decision and mistake: after learning how important the preparing plan as well as documenting are, I encountered a problem - decision. I remember staring at my maps and documents, wondering if they are enough to execute. But in the reading, the Chapter mentions that we have to make a decision to start the work with what information and resources we have. Then, we return, admit the mistakes and fix the plan and document. That is precisely what I did, and I keep doing it now.

3.  Shifting left: throughout my personal projects, I usually fumble onto problems and realize I need to revise my plan, documents and base codes. For many people, including me, this extra step is not intrigued because it slows down the process. However, for the sake of future development, I decide to do the revise. Now, after the reading, I realize it is a wise move. I actually shift left to prevent defect cost the problems will cause later one. Fascinating.