CS373 Spring 2017: Fernando Emir Mendoza-Olivares

SWE; Finale

2017-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Final Thoughts

Oh boy, what a semester. This is the last time I’ll be a full-time student, and it feels a bit odd leaving that behind. That said, I’m glad it’s ending with a bang. I got to take nothing but CS classes this semester, and I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a- well. wait. What’s the proper term? Computer Scientist? Programmer? Developer?

I’m not sure any of us is strictly any of these things, even when we only consider what we “do.” I know I’m not. I love the music I make and the history I read too much to detach myself from these things, and that’s an idea I’d like to keep afloat as I go out into the world. Still, it feels good to “do” something, and to do it well enough to be proud of it, and after this semester I feel like I can “do” this CompSci-Programming-Development hybrid pretty well. There’s been a lot of challenges along the way, and a lot of doubt, yet at the end of every semester I feel stronger in many ways. This semester has been no different. In particular, it’s been Glenn Downing’s team-centric real-world oriented teaching style that has helped me to grow into somebody who can go out and contribute to a project and be proud of their work.

What I mean to say is that despite the challenges of CS, or maybe because of them, it’s worth the effort. If you’re reading this and you’re deciding whether or not to take SWE or OOP, do it. It might get hard at times, but this class is worthwhile. Thanks to this class, I managed to get my first internship. That may seem like a small, natural step to you, reader, but it’s been a struggle for me to reach this point, both mentally and in ability. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, your life won’t change by taking one course. But you will grow by continuing to pursue your goals and learning all you can, and if you had to choose a struggle, you’d do well to struggle here.

Until next time, friends.

SWE Week Fourteen!

2017-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
AAAAAH I got an internship! It was a wild process. I’ve never been to interview training or anything like that, and I had to do my first panel interview, but I got through the steps and got hired! They’re doing intern-to-hire, so it probably didn’t hurt that next semester will be my last, and will only be a single class. I guess I’ll put a pause on the whole “family construction business” thing for now. I also got some stuff done for school! Mostly just an AI project, no big deal.

What’s in your way?
Nothing now! I have a couple of exams to take, but they don’t feel like things to overcome. They feel more like forms to fill out to prove I know the material, which I do. If I had to put something down as being in my way, it’d be this upcoming presentation that I am admittedly unprepared for. I do, however, have a pretty nice knowledge of the project we built, so it should be no problem to talk for a few minutes about it!

What will you do next week?
FIND A NEW APARTMENT. Oh gee, I refrain from complaining about it but oh my lord, it’s time to go. Now that I’ll have a steady source of income, my roommate and I can afford to dip out of this place. School-wise, I have this exam to prepare for and a presentation to do. All-in-all, things are going swell.

What’s my experience of the class?
I’ve always mentioned how much I enjoy this class, but I really have to say that besides a fun time, it’s been the most valuable class I’ve taken, along with OOP and Data Structures. 99% of the questions I’ve been asked on interviews and in meetings have been discussed in one of these three classes, so shout out once more to Downing for teaching this.

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip this week, I’d like to recommend Codecademy, an online challenge-tutorial sort of site that I just discovered. It’s a nice alternative to HackerRank if you want a different set of challenges.
Until next time!

SWE Week Thirteen!

2017-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This past week, my team and I finished the final project for this class! It was a struggle, but we got most of it done. Shout out to Dylan Droll, who really ramped up the effort and made the website look incredible. I also started my internship application process. I know it’s a bit late, but I actually have a few interviews lined up! Exciting!

What’s in your way?
Too much to do! I wish I had more time. The saving grace here is that there’s a lull before the exam for this class. A lot of my other classes suddenly became very demanding, and I simply do not have the time.

What will you do next week?
Interviews! There’s a few very promising opporunities coming up for this summer. I’m a bit nervous, especially since I’ve never had an interview that wasn’t for WalMart or Tech Support. Still, I’m excited. I’ll actually be able to pay my rent this summer!!

What’s my experience of the class?
Finishing out the semester strong! On a real note, the things I’ve learned in this class have really helped me. I don’t think I’d be getting these interviews if it wasn’t for these classes. One of the interviews I had recently actually went extremely well because I was the first candidate to have used Google Cloud Platform, which I used for this class. So yeah, shout out to Glenn Downing.

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip this week, I’d like to recommend Fiddles IO, a set of online emulators for various languages. Their most popular one is their Javascript Fiddle, which allows you to test HTML, CSS, and Javascript and see the results immediately. A lot are still in the works, such as their Python Fiddle, but it’s still a good tool for quick testing, such as syntactical questions.
Keeping it short this week!
Until next time!

SWE Week Twelve!

2017-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This week I worked on the final phase of the project! It’s going to come down to the wire again, but hopefully we can get enough done for our final product to be passable. We’ve only just hit Phase 2 standards, but such is life. We finally got the API working completely, which is nice given that a group will be relying on our API to finish their project. There’s a few quality of life issues I’d like to address, like case-insensitivity and substrings, but I think an ILIKE query will solve all of those issues.

What’s in your way?
As I posted on Piazza, I’ve been having a lot of issues with Google Cloud Platform deploying slowly. I saw an older Piazza post where other groups were having these issues, but ours seems to be on the extreme side, with a new version taking 12 hours+ to deploy.

What will you do next week?
PANIC. Just kidding. Hopefully get everything done in time not to hurt the other group’s presentation. I also have a bit of homework to do, but that will come when it does. Also, I’ve started applying to internships in Texas, so hopefully I can find something soon! At least, I’d like to pick up that tutor job with the school so that I can work part time somewhere else!

What’s my experience of the class?
It’s been great! The switch to Java is mildly annoying, but I learned some of this in OOP last year. The language was C++ then, but the “optionally extends, necessarily extends, etc.” rules are the same, so it feels like familiar waters. One thing I’d like to suggest, however, is to make clear the limitations of the tools we’re asked to use. I get that we should be discovering it mostly on our own, but PostgreSQL is a necessary part of our project and it is not inherently support by another tool; Google Cloud Platform. A student who is familiar with setting up SQL servers and such might find it surprising that Google Cloud Platform will not accept it, and only supports Postgres if you just through a few hoops first. I don’t know, just my two cents.

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip this week, I’d like to recommend the UT podcast: 15 Minute History! It’s a monthly podcast that explores different aspects of history, be it the origins of Populism or the personal struggles of former slaves after the Civil War.
Until next time!

SWE Week Eleven!

2017-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This week, I tried to finish the idb project. It didn’t pan out too well, given the lack of teammates and the severe disparity in our priorities. We did get a sizable amount of work done, however, and we have a lot of the requirements working. Problem is we had a lot of trouble with our database. For some reason, trying to access the database on Travis and from localhost works perfectly fine, no problems whatsoever. Google Cloud Platform, however, won’t allow access to the database, as I found out after much narrowing down. Our Travis and local tests led me to believe with high confidence that the system I had set up would allow us to access the database when pushed to production. When we finally did push to production, the sudden errors held us back from completing the project, since we couldn’t query our own databse to populate our website. I’m considering fixing this soon, but also not. I can’t say my morale is particularly high.
Also, it was my sister’s birthday this weekend! That was a ton of fun :D It feels good seeing family friends.

What’s in your way?
This project. It might not be such an issue, but given the situation, I’m expected to spend far more time on it than average. But enough complaining.

What will you do next week?
I don’t know, really. I know I have an AI project to do, but otherwise I guess I’ll just keep taking stabs at this project until something goes right. I also need to start applying for summer jobs. Maybe the help desk or IHOP are hiring, or something. Who knows.
I’m also going to pay the CMHC a visit while I’m at it.

What’s my experience of the class?
Despite how poorly everything is going, I really can honestly say that this project has made me more proud than any other I’ve ever made. The bright side of having more responsibilities on this assignment is that I’ve learned about a lot of tools that I wouldn’t have been familiar with otherwise. This is the first time I’ve set up a real working website, set up and played with a server, designed and implemented an API, used Google Cloud Platform, and more. I’m particularly proud of the way I got Travis, Github, and GCP to come together. There’s still some optimizations to be made there, but those will come in time.

tip-of-the-week?
This week, I’d like to point to this paper on neural networks. I’ve always been interested in playing with them and this paper is inspiring me to do just that! In particular, I’d like to see how useful they are in parsing letters out of images. I have a fun project in mind that could make use of that!
Until next time!

SWE Week Ten!

2017-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This week, I slowed down my work pace a little bit. I have a lot of time for my projects, so I thought I’d take it easy and go home a little earlier than usual. Thankfully, we mostly have the dynamic part of the website up and running, so the remaining work is minimal.
Oh! This Monday we had a presentation from Atlassian! I thought it was fantastic, the only talks that have gotten me that excited were the Google and Bloomberg talks. I liked the flexibility of Google’s cloud services and Bloomberg’s community outreach and service programs seemed like something I’d like to be a part of, but Atlassian really took the cake. Their attitudes in particular were impressive, as they’re the first company I’ve ever heard speak that was at least trying not to be pretentious. As a fan of collaborative programming and team-centric software, the collaborative nature of their products also strongly pushed me towards them.
In any case, I did start the week motivated enough to talk to a career advisor to consider applying for an internship with them. However, as the week progressed and I wrote my resume, I realized I can’t really intern due to a lack of personal projects, so I’ve come to the decision to go back to construction work after I finish my degree, for which I only need 3 more hours. That may change, but it seems like a good choice for now.
Still, I’m excited that companies like Atlassian exist! Some day :^)

What’s in your way?
The biggest thing in my way for this class is the lack of synergy in my team. Although willing to work, competing priorities have kept our productivity lower than it could be, but that’s normal! I can’t expect to be in sync with a group I met 3 weeks ago, and we’re all making efforts to figure things out, so I’m optimistic! All in all, the project is going very well and I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of a project than I have been with this one. I’m learning so much about so many different things!

What will you do next week?
Finish up this project!! I still have to figure out a smooth way to get continuous integration between GCP/GAE, Travis, and Github. Mostly, Travis is the troublemaker between the three, but Google’s extensive documentation should make it easier as I read more and more into it.

What’s my experience of the class? Good! I’m enjoying the diverse topics we’ve been covering in this class throughout the semester. Now that we’re on the topic of SQL, I’m really starting to appreciate a language that I long thought to be tedious and hacky. I’m excited to keep learning more!

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip of the week, I’d like to show you Regex101! This website really helped me understand the way that regex grouping works. Try plugging in a few of the strings from the practice files on the class website to see in-depth explanations of the whole thing!
Until next time!

SWE Week Nine!

2017-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
Got back from Spring Break! I ended spending most of my time with my family and friends in San Antonio, which was a really sweet time. I always forget just how comfortable it is to be home. I know that city so well, my friends and I drive all around it going to our favorite little spots and it’s simply the most satisfying thing.
As soon as I got back from break, it was time to jump into Project #3. Over the break I had done research on Flask, and it ended up being a little more confusing than I expected at first, but after this first phase I can say I’m very comfortable with it. Despite being undermanned(or underpersonned?), my team and I ended up finishing the whole thing, with the exception of a slightly sub-par API documentation and technical report. Shout out to Dylan, who spent a night at the labs trying to get his GUI looking just the way he wanted, it really shone through.

What’s in your way?
As far as the project goes, the lack of people is annoying. I understand there’s another group with only four students, but it isn’t much consolation. There’s a particular bug where things either won’t render properly or the site will crash on the custom domain, but will work perfectly fine on the default domain that Google App Engine provides. I’m still looking for a solution.

What will you do next week?
Hopefully talk to a career advisor, as I’m just as lost as I ever was in the job department. I also want to look in to the rest of the tool for this next phase of the project, as none of my team members have the experience.

What’s my experience of the class? The fun continues! I’ve been doing much better on the quizzes, partially as a result of going home and trying out the programming excercises and re-reading the articles in the morning during breakfast. I’m glad I was able to change direction from the beginning of the semester when I hardly came to class. The lectures are still super rewarding to listen to!

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip this week, I’d like to point out that SQLZoo is a thing. They have some practice-based lessos for SQL that I’ve found useful. It’s not closely following what we do in class, but it’s good to get familiar with the language(this includes Postgre). Until next time!

SWE Week Eight!

2017-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
My main focus this past week was my AI class! We had an exam on Thursday and, although I knew what to expect, it still took a bit of focus to prepare for. I ended up doing very well! This is the first time I’ve ever gotten results for a written exam back within a couple days of taking it. Typically, it takes a lot more time to grade the written responses, so it was a pleasant surprise to get that out of my mind right before Spring Break. Also, I got my group for this upcoming project! We’ve started talking on Slack and I’m hopeful for this project!

What’s in your way?
This may sound selfish, but the thing in my way is the number of projects that I have to do over this break. I have 3 projects all due the week I get back to school. Oh well. The other thing in my way is meeting with my group! I’d love to get everybody together in one place and discuss the project, but that won’t be happening until we get back from break.

What will you do next week?
W Y L ‘ O U T. Just kidding. I may go to a show or two, but mostly I’ll be spending the week with my loved ones in San Antonio. I’ve been reading up on the tools that we’ll need for this project and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Thankfully, there’s a ton of tutorials online which will help be get my bearings. For now, I’m focusing on learning Flask. It’s pretty minimalist, so I think I can do a good job of applying it to the project, but the devil is always in the details, so I’ll have to make sure I apply it correctly.

What’s my experience of the class? It’s been fun. I’m enjoying the talks that we’ve been asked to attend. Google’s presentation in particular was very exciting, so much so that they convinced me to learn Google’s cloud services over Amazon’s. Class itself has been fun too, professor Downing was merciful enough to let us take Friday off! That meant that my Thursday suddenly became a weekend, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with some friends instead of thinking about class.

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip this week, I’d like to recommend tutorials by TheNewBoston. He is a video content creator who specializes in practical, casual programming tutorials. He has some short series on ReactJS and Python Web Dev, one of which is a short introduction to Flask. If you’re into this whole Web Dev thing, he also has some longer video series on PHP. Check him out for some casual learning over the break! Until next time, dear reader.

SWE Week Seven!

2017-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This week, we took our first exam for this class! I went in confident in my conceptual understanding, but feeling underpracticed. The test was different than what I expected, as there was a much stronger focus on the readings than I thought there’d be. The programming questions focused more on knowledge of concepts and Python’s mechanics, so it suited my preparation much better than a written exam. In the end, I did very well on the exam! I also finalized my group for Mobile Computing, so I’ll have to start working our meeting times into my schedule.

What’s in your way?
The groups for this class! I failed to find a group in time, so it looks like I’ll be placed in a group at random on Monday. I’m not totally opposed to the idea, since all of my classmates seem like fine people, I’d just like to avoid any conflicting styles when I can. Although, I guess conflicting workflows are part of working in groups, so it might be good practice for the workforce if my group is not on the same page.

What will you do next week?
Meet my group and prepare for one of the most important weeks of the year; spring break! Jokes aside, I do have an exam for my Artificial Intelligence class that I need to prepare for, and a few homework assignments to knock out before I really get into break mode.

What’s my experience of the class? Improving my attendance has had a pretty positive effect on my class experience! Although I haven’t made any friends, I’ve gotten to better know more of my classmates, and that goes a long way towards creating an environment more conducive to learning! This is thanks almost entirely to professor Downing’s policy of making students work together to consider implementations of concepts. All in all, I’m enjoying the class more.

tip-of-the-week?
For my tip, I’d like to point out that there’s a ton of team-oriented software development tools out there! Being the JetBrains fanboy that I am, I have to point to YouTrack, an issue tracking program similar to Slack. Granted, I’ve had very limited experience with this software, and I’ll reserve judgement until I get to use Slack for the rest of the semester, but the point stands that you have options! Play around with tools until you find whatever helps make you more productive! Until next time, dear reader.

SWE Week Six!

2017-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?
This past week I made some progress towards what I’ll really be doing for my Mobile Development class! Depending on the app, I may even post it to one of these blogs towards the end of the semester! We are now at the first lull before the exams! Next week, we have our first exam for this class, and so I took some time this weekend to practice the essential Python basics that I’m sure will come in handy. I wrote a form of RangeIterator, and now I’m hoping that I can apply that to any situation which may come up in the exam. If this is anything like the OOP exams, flexibility in design will be important.

What’s in your way?
This exam! Normally I do very well in exams, but this one has me a little nervous. However, all it takes is a little bit of practice and I’m sure I’ll feel better about it. I also still need project group for this class but according to Downing, many people drop after the first exam, and so it might not be worth trying just yet, as it would take a lot of effort for uncertain results.

What will you do next week?
I’m still going to be looking for project partners. I’d also like to stop by office hours with one of the TAs and get a better feel for what I should be able to do for the exam. Thankfully, I’m fairly comfortable with Python, so I don’t have an immense amount to worry about. Despite my worries over this exam, or perhaps because of them, I’ll be going back to San Antonio on Tuesday for a concert by my favorite band in the world!! Remember to take breaks, friends. Your wellbeing is more important than your grade (to a point.)

What’s my experience of the class? I’m incredibly disappointed that I had to miss class on Friday! Otherwise, everything is going well! I’m actually enjoying the group exercises. Talking with my classmates can be fun sometimes, and it helps to see that the naive vision that everyone but you knows exactly what they’re doing is unfounded.

tip-of-the-week?
My tip of the week is a handy book/website called Learn Python The Hard Way! It’s a book/tutorial series designed to teach you the nuances of Python. If you’re enjoying Python because of this class, this is a fun exercise-driven resource that could help put you on your way to true mastery of Python! There’s also editions for other programming languages, but the Python site is by far the best. Until next time, friends.