The Real Software Engineering - A Reflection
10 May 2024What is a Software Engineering?
This semester I got to learn different aspects of Software Engineering. I did not have any prior experience with front end coding such as html and css so learning about it in class was like a freshly opened door to me filled with new and interesting possibilities. In my head, what people think about when they hear the term software engineering is just ‘coding.’ That’s the thing that everyone associates with this field, and while that is definitely true there are so many other ideas that come together and create software engineering.
Wait, You Have To Test What You Make?!
One thing that I got deeply involved in, was building testing for my final group project’s website. I learned about testing a little bit before taking this class and the idea of testing functionally, but I had done it on smaller and simpler applications. Working on testing for my final group project which was a fully fledged website was honestly just as much of a task as creating it. When testing you have to go through every bit of functionality that your site has in order to see if everything works. I think the goal of testing even is to try and break it. By just doing general testing you miss the point of everything .
Having Good Handwriting
Another thing with development is coding standards. Just like the header says, a good way to think about coding standards is like your handwriting. you code. You want to have good handwriting for your peers to be able to read and look at. In this class we implemented tools like Eslint in order to maintain some type of coding standard in our class assignments and projects. I think having some sort of order and rules while you work is important because it will help with overall readability of your code. If your code is only readable to you, in a collaborative environment–where a lot of software engineering takes place, nobody will be able to understand what you wrote. Even think about yourself, if you write a program with no comments and no coding standard, come back a year later you won’t remember what you wrote so while reading your code you have to retrace almost every single line. Also, Eslint points out general errors like a missing semicolon or comma which is why I will continue to implement that tool in my projects.
Looking Back, Taking Steps Forward
Overall I think this class was a great first step into the world of software engineering. Looking at something like our final project for this class–which is listed on my portfolio. It is basically an invasive species tracker for the state of Hawaii where you can upload and learn more different species here. I honestly never thought I would get to build something as put together as our website. It makes me want to continue on building new projects and continue learning potentially new frameworks and other aspects. I had interest in this field and this class helped me learn a little bit more and I can say that I want to continue learning and growing as a software engineer.