Blog 7: IDB Phase 2
1. What did you do this past week?
This past week, my group and I completed Phase 1 of our IDB project and started to work incrementally on Phase 2. The end of Phase 1 was a mad dash to the finish line and we ended up submitting our project very close to the deadline. However, we did complete the project on time and we were very pleased with the initial results. We feel like we accomplished a lot in Phase 1 and look forward to implementing Phase 2.
2. What’s in your way?
Phase 2 appears to require a substantial amount of work, so my group and I want to get started as soon as possible to avoid rushing at the end as we did with Phase 1. While we met all of the requirements, it felt like we almost were not going to finish on time, and we would like to avoid that feeling going forward.
3. What will you do next week?
Next week, we will continue to work on Phase 2 of the project, and we will likely work a little harder than normal just because of our spring break approaching. While we should not have to work over the break, we want to ensure that we do not absolutely have to, and any work completed during the break would only serve to put us ahead of schedule.
4. What did you think of Paper #7: Liskov Substitution Principle?
I thought Paper #7 was an interesting follow up to Paper #6, and the paper for this week almost made the previous paper make more sense. Paper #6 discussed the Open-Closed Principle require that all written code be open for extension, but closed for modification. I felt like I knew what this meant at the time, but this week’s paper helped solidify the concept. “Open for extension” relates to the Liskov Substitution principle in that all previously written code must be able to accept base class objects and all of their derivatives. The derivatives may provide more functionality and extend the original code, but the original code must still be able to use the derivatives without being modified.
5. What was your experience of operators and iteration?
I thought the nuances of operators and iteration in Python were very interesting. We were exposed to quite a few interesting cases in the lectures and I do not think I would have stumbled upon them if I were simply coding in my free time. While I have experience with operators and iteration in general, the special cases from the lectures were new to me.
6. What made you happy this week?
This week had a little more of a relaxed pace after the project submission on Tuesday. After Tuesday, I was able to breathe a little bit and not feel the strain of a fast-approaching deadline. I was also really excited to be one week closer to Spring Break. I think Spring Break will allow me to return to my work refreshed and ready for the rest of the semester.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week?
This article by Natasha Turak mentions the Ukrainian software developers that continue to work remotely in spite of the conflict in eastern Europe. By including this article, I am not attempting to make any political statements. I was simply in awe of the fact that people from Ukraine were still submitting their deliverables to US-based companies while the surrounding area experienced a military conflict. One of the CEOs interviewed as a part of this article similarly stood in awe that work was still completed by Ukrainian employees even after they were given permission to forgo work for bigger priorities. I cannot imagine still having the mental capacity to perform a job while being in the same situation.
