Blog 13: IDB4
1. What did you do this past week?
This past week, my group and I worked to address all of the previous issues with our project and we are also trying to refactor where possible. There are also still a few things that we need to do in order to accommodate our customer team.
2. What’s in your way?
As the semester begins to come to a close, many classes have projects, essays, and finals coming up, and I have to make sure I stay on top of my work in all of my classes. As of right now, I still have a couple of essays and 2 computer science class projects to go before the end of the semester.
3. What will you do next week?
Next week, my group will continue to refactor and meet all of the requirements for the final submission of the project.
4. What did you think of Paper 13. What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You?
I thought Paper 13 was very interesting because I feel like the “Big Tech” and computer science industry has always been advertised to me as a diverse and inclusive field void of discriminatory or harassment struggles that many other industries face. I was shocked to hear about all of the accounts of discrimination and harassment experienced by women on the academic side of computer science. This paper serves to prove that discrimination and harassment are pervasive problems that span every industry and require work from everyone to eliminate. I am glad that the article shares the experiences of those affected and helps spread awareness so that work can be done to create a diverse and inclusive environment for all.
5. What was your experience of subqueries and refactoring?
I have experimented with SQL before and created some database projects for fun, so the subquery concept was easy to grasp. SQL is also integral to our IDB project, so I felt very comfortable with all of the SQL lectures. Refactoring is a topic that I do not have as much experience with, so the lectures were new and very interesting. In the past, I have finished projects very close to the deadline, so there was not a lot of time to go back and reevaluate how every task could be improved for efficiency and scalability.
6. What made you happy this week?
I have been very busy as the semester wraps up, but I was able to hang out with and see some friends that I have not seen in a while. Especially with graduation around the corner, I am trying to spend as much time with my friends as possible while also working hard in my classes.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week?
Last week, I read an article that was supposed to discuss how software engineers could do their part in reversing climate change, but I was disappointed about the shallow depth investigated by the article. This week, I found an article that provides concrete examples of how energy efficient software is impacting human energy consumption. For example, a research group analyzed Android keyboard applications and found that the most energy efficient keyboard (fewer animations and word prediction features) reduced the mobile device’s energy consumption by about 9% in their tests. Another research team ranked 27 programming languages from most to least energy efficient based on their speed, memory, and energy to execute. C led as the most energy efficient all-around.
