CS-Portfolio

CS-210

• Summarize the project and what problem it was solving.

  • The project lets a user manage items sold; it's primarily directed for grocery item use, but could be used for any number of inventory types. The user has multiple options they can choose from: insert new items, remove items, maybe because they were returned or entered by mistake. The program also has a search feature to retrieve the amount sold for a specific isolated item, or the user can choose to display all of the items sold in a list with corresponding frequency values or display a histogram.

• What did you do particularly well?

  • I think I handled user experience very well. With text output and input formatted in a way that would be easy for the user to read. I also believe that I maintained const correctness through out the program.

• Where could you enhance your code? How would these improvements make your code more efficient, secure, and so on?

  • I would redesign the way data is originally stored and opt to the way the back up file works. I'd use the file stream to pull the lines from the file and then use a string stream to pull the line from the file apart and store name and number of items sold in a map. My insert and remove functions could default to adding only one item unless the user specifies a quantity in their input string. I believe I did a good job with input exception handling, except in the insert and remove functions, but my thought process only allowing integer value's in the input is maybe the item name includes integer values. I wanted the program to be flexible.

• Which pieces of the code did you find most challenging to write, and how did you overcome this? What tools or resources are you adding to your support network?

  • Well, a little ashamed of it, but the only time i really struggled was when I refactored the EMenuSelection Enum to its own file. I forgot the #pragma once and kept getting a redefinition error, it took me at least an hour to realize what i done. I relied on tools and wizards to create classes and all that boilerplate is generated for you, but i made that file myself, and my muscle memory wasn't trained to include a #ifndef or #pragma once preprocessor directive.

• What skills from this project will be particularly transferable to other projects or course work?

  • well as mentioned above, I'll defiantly understand a multiple definition error when i see it again, but also working with files and overloading input output stream operators will be a valuable skill moving forward. Overloading the stream insertion operator to read into my enum made my code feel more manageable, regardless it was a small program and only got input for that specific type once, but who knows what the future holds for during the program's development and maintained life cycle. I also implemented it in such a way that even when features/options are added, and the comments are adhered too; the overloaded operator will never have to be touched for the EMenuSelection type.

• How did you make this program maintainable, readable, and adaptable?

  • By using multiple classes with their own responsibility in the program and using reasonable abstraction. The main function is simple with self documenting code. Three function call's one to print the menu and one to perform the operation selected. The code base is documented very well with doxygen comments, if a future developer wanted to add a new operation all they would need to do is create the function in the operations class, add to the switch statement in PerformOperation, add the operation to EMenuSelection and add the option to the list in DisplayMenu. I overloaded the insertion operator in such a way that the code will never have to be updated there, and I wanted to find a way to reduce the amount of changes required for adding new features. I had a few ideas, but all those ideas was around the same amount of changes, but with added code complexity.

CS-250

How do I interpret user needs and implement them into a program? How does creating “user stories” help with this?

• How I would approach this is by conducting interviews, surveys and end user testing such as beta access. Welcoming and being open to any feedback the stakeholders, product owner, or end users might have. User stories are a great way to structure a feature or requirement where every one involved can understand it, so it doesn't take a cs degree and knowing how to read UML diagrams or other technical implementation information. A User story can contain priority information in the form of story points for example, this can help prioritize work in a manner that suits the value delivered in a order that's appropriate for the customer.

How do I approach developing programs? What Agile processes do I hope to incorporate into my future development work?

• Breaking down larger problems into smaller steps is a strong way to tackle problems, so I will definitely utilize that moving forward.
• Testing early and often is something that helps with the development cycle and saves a lot of time by reducing potential rewrites and ensuring that the implementation is meeting the requirement.
• Staying open to feedback is the way we grow. We're human and are going to make mistakes, or misinterpret something at some point, or maybe not quite understand the problem. Asking for feedback and clarification of requirements are imperative in most cases to ensure your work is meeting expectations.
• CI/CD is definitely something I want to learn more about, and have recently started boot.dev and linkedin courses to help me get there faster.
• I prefer scrum but see the benefit of kanban. Scrum is better suited to ensure that the team is on the same page with implementation of features with higher levels of communication.

What does it mean to be a good team member in software development?

• To be apart of a team means to communicate with them about what you have got done or may need help with. Staying self-organizing and on task to get your work done, and being open to giving feedback and more importantly accepting any feedback you received, and working with your team to succeed in completing the shared goals, and fostering a growth mindset by always being open to learning new ideas and processes, as well as new technologies. As Khadgar would say "Knowledge is power."

CS-230

The Gaming Room is a client looking to reach a larger audience by extending their existing game Draw It or Lose It (originally for Android) to additional platforms. They are looking to create a cross platform web application that can be accessed from multiple types of client operating systems where the client will only support single sign on and progress will be synced across all their chosen devices for play.

I believe that I understood which tools would be required and how web applications have a service running on a server and the browser running on the client renders functionality appropriate for the user using front end technology such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The curriculum on RESTful API's was very useful in plugging my knowledge gap in how to appropriately use HTTP CRUD request's and how to handle user authentication. Working through the design document allowed to structure ideas and audit them for any missing requirements or functionality before starting development.

I failed to successfully articulate the client side section; that area of the document needs the most revision. This was due to lack of understanding on my part because phrasing in the rubric about how to approach these questions was not very clear, and I missed an announcement that added the necessary clarity needed to successfully complete this section. Based on feedback I should have focused more on Browsers on the different platforms for intended functionality.

Firstly, interpreting user needs is understanding the customer and the goals they want to achieve with the product. Translating those goals and needs into features and prioritizing the features based on the need(s) of multiple users can be beneficial in laying out a plan that delivers the most value to the customer over an iterative cycle. Secondly, it's essential in understanding user/customer needs for multiple reasons. What good is features and functionality added that the user or customer didn't ask for? Listening to feedback and focusing on the needs of users and the customer will increase usability and satisfaction with the product. The goal is to add the most value to the users and customers, listening to feedback and implementing features based on feedback and initial requirements is the best way to deliver true value.

The initial approach I would take to designing similar software would be to conduct interviews with the customer. The initial requirements and goals for the product would be known, and if there was any plans to reach support other platforms in the future. User Stories, Epics, and a Backlog would created, and an in app survey would be implemented early into the application, so at the end of each iteration. The feedback received could be aggregated and implementation could be changed or adapted based on feedback on a priority basis.

CS-255

The client, DriverPass, wants a system to help students prepare for their written exams and road tests to obtain their driver's license. The system will update as DMV changes exams and policies, so students have current and relevant learning materials. Students can schedule appointments with instructors to practice their driving skills.

What I did well was describing the functional requirements of the system. However, there is always room for improvement, but I touched on all of the needs for the client. The area that could use refinement would be the sequence diagram and class diagram. I added a shopping cart to the buy course sequence diagram, but failed to include it in my class diagram.

Including the user’s needs while designing a system is paramount for multiple reasons. You want the end users to be satisfied with the product, which includes the client. The client should feel like they got the product they paid for. Failing to meet the client's needs will lead to dissatisfaction and trust issues with future clients. That’s why agile methodologies are so powerful, because they keep the users and client in the loop and offer incremental builds where feedback can be received. Maybe the client didn’t properly articulate what they wanted in the interviews. it's best to catch this after a short sprint rather than in a traditional waterfall approach, where the system is already complete, and big changes to the system will be expensive.

The first step in designing software is understanding the problem. I would gather the requirements and intended features and use cases for the system, conducting interviews with the client and users of the current system, if applicable, to find any improvements that could be made to current features in the new implementation. Creating a Use Case diagram from the requirements gathered would be the next step, and utilizing other types of UML diagrams, such as class, sequence, and activity diagrams, to structure the system and factor out any redundancy or circular dependency issues. For code documentation, I would use documentation generators like Javadoc or Doxygen, which create HTML documents that can be used for a website.

CS-330

Approaching software design can be overwhelming at first because you have an idea that you must break down into a list of features and systems, and then further break down those lists into smaller bite sized components. Keeping software agile and decoupled can be quite a challenge as it's easy to tie code together to get something working without taking the proper time to create an abstraction. However, as some very experience developers I watch also say that abstraction is not free and comes with a cost, it has diminishing returns, abstract too early, and you're in for a nightmare.

As I worked on the project I kept that in mind. I worked in manageable sizes for tasks. I got the bottle drawn and then encapsulated it into it's own function. I did the same with the table as well. I also refactored the code so the RenderScene method would stay cleaner, by utilizing void function pointers I was able to create for the most part a general function to draw meshes, but it had limitations and would'nt draw every mesh.

By using features that exist in many languages like passing functions as arguments and functions. I was able to condense and make most of the code more readable, at least to me. I also tackled GLSL, which I had never touched shaders prior to this course, but it was fun learning.

Learning about computational graphics and visualizations will give me an edge for the future as my dream is to work as a game developer. Knowing or at least being familiar with lower level API's is never a bad thing. A lot of people tell others to not rebuild the wheel, but what if I want to build wheels? Knowing how matrices and vectors are used in computational graphics and how buffers are used to display all forms of objects and effects has further increased my understanding of tools that I use daily.

CS-300

• What was the problem you were solving in the projects for this course?

The problem throughout the course was focuesed on storing and retrieving data; specifically a list of courses with associated memebers like a name, id, and any prerequisites the course required. Finding the optimal data structure to provide the fastest computation for searching and iterating the courses was the exercise.

• How did you approach the problem? Consider why data structures are important to understand.

I approached the problem in a methodical way; looking at the requirements and operations needed to be performed on the data. This is the key to finding the most optimal data structure, its not only a question of what we are storing, but how we will work with the stored data. For example, you wouldn't want to use an array or dynamic array such as a vector when the main operation is searching objects via an id or name, unless you make the id's correlate to the index it's being stored at; which is a fine solution, but it causes a normalization issue by creating more than one source of truth in the data, which could be a maintaince nightmare. Data structures are important simply because using the wrong one for certian types of operations will create a huge bottleneck in performance and bad UX for the user, dealing with constant hitches and unresponsiveness.

• How did you overcome any roadblocks you encountered while going through the activities or project?

The Zybook was an amazing resource, it provided great example code to build from. I also utilized popular websites like geeksforgeeks.com, which have nice articles on theory, and practical application of the theory.

• How has your work on this project expanded your approach to designing software and developing programs?

Since, I have worked ahead in my programming journey outside of my college coursework; I was already in the mindset to ask the right questions about the data being stored for the application, but I will say that this course gave me a better and more nuanced understanding of data structures, noteably, hash functions for a hash map. I really loved that section, it was my favorite week of the course.

• How has your work on this project evolved the way you write programs that are maintainable, readable, and adaptable?

I have had a focus on scalability and maintainability for awhile now, and readability of the code is something I have really focused on from the beginning, I opt for more verbosity, than tricks to let a function be one line. The idea is to write code that doesn't need comments. Comments and the code can become out of sync and increase confusion. For example, using lambda's or omitting the brackets for control blocks in C is generally a bad idea for maintainability.