Blog 6: IDB Phase 1
1. What did you do this past week?
This past week, my group finalized our IDB project proposal and it received approval. We also began work on Phase 1 and are still currently finishing up the requirements. Because we did not finish our proposal until much later than other groups, we had to work a little faster in completing Phase 1, but all of the work has been going smoothly so far.
2. What’s in your way?
My group still needs to finish Phase 1 and then we want to immediately begin Phase 2 so that we have the maximum amount of time to implement all of the requirements. We have heard that Phase 2 requires a lot of work, and we would like to avoid being in a time crunch for this upcoming phase.
3. What will you do next week?
Next week, my group will finish up the remainder of Phase 1 for the IDB project, and we will begin work on Phase 2. Our hope is that we can make significant progress in the first half of the Phase 2 deadline, so that we can take more time in designing our project to better accommodate the requirements of Phase 3. In order to have a project experience that is as smooth as possible, we need to plan extensively and prepare for potential hiccups that could put us behind schedule.
4. What did you think of Paper #6: Open-Closed Principle?
I thought Paper #6 was an interesting contrast to the paper we read last week. While the previous paper touted for robust, un-fragile code that could be modified without breaking dependent code, the new paper took a different approach. Paper #6 explained the “closed” half of the Open-Closed Principle as closing off source code for modification after it is written. Increased functionality comes in the form of extensions to previous code, not by modifying it. I thought it was very interesting to see the two different perspectives.
5. What was your experience of for in, reduce, object models, and operators?
I thought the for in, reduce, and operators lecture material was fairly straightforward and easy to comprehend once I understood how they worked together. While the quizzes were difficult at first just because of the time constraints, I quickly got the hang of the material and became quite comfortable with it. The object models took some getting used to just because of the Python syntax, but overall I enjoyed the lectures this past week.
6. What made you happy this week?
This week, I was able to visit home briefly over the weekend and see my family. As my undergraduate years have progressed, I have not been able to see my parents as often as I would like, so I really enjoyed my time back home. While the three hour drive is a little annoying and the weekend feels too short, the trip was well worth it, and I am back in West Campus feeling refreshed.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week?
This article by Sonya Herrera ranks the San Francisco Bay Area cities in order of increasing average software engineer salary. Many computer science majors and hopeful software engineers dream of snagging a coveted job at a FAANG big tech company because of the experience, cutting-edge resources, and high compensation. The article lists Los Gatos, California, the home of Netflix, as the Bay Area city boasting the highest average salary among software engineers. I am inclined to think that each of the listed averages is greatly skewed by whichever big tech company resides in the accompanying city. For example, Los Gatos is also home to Roku and Plex, but the other companies are not necessarily known for software engineering salaries greater than $500,000.
