CS373 Spring 2021: Laura Martinez — Blog 8

What did you do this past week?

This past week my team and I worked on Phase II of our project. I specifically tried to get pagination figured out and updated one of the model pages to pull from our backend using our RESTful API to populate all the instances of that particular model. I also implemented a general instance page that only pulls the appropriate information for one instance from our backend. Honestly, it was a lot of learning and failure. If it weren’t for my team members putting in so much effort, I would definitely be overwhelmed trying to figure everything out.

What’s in your way?

I believe my team and I just have to finish up testing and other documentation like the technical report and the diagram. What’s been in my way this week have been my other classes and also learning how to implement the requirements for Phase II.

What will you do next week?

Next week my team and I will continue to work on the project and try to get as much done for Phase III as early on as we can. We all have other classes to worry about to so if we can be proactive about this class it makes our workload more manageable.

If you read it, what did you think of the Interface Segregation Principle?

Reading the Interface Segregation Principle made me feel like I was back in Mike Scott’s class and I think I even read it and used his voice to narrate in my head. He was big on abstractions from what I can remember. When he first started talking about it I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept. I like concrete things that I can physically see work. Abstractions are the complete opposite. However, I eventually got the hang of them and I think the Interface Segregation Principle paper did a great job in detailing the benefits of it and the consequences that accompany “fat” classes. I specifically liked the examples used because I thought they were easy to follow along with.

What was your experience of comprehensions, yield, closures, and decorators? (this question will vary, week to week)

All of these concepts were new to me. I think Professor Downing did a great job explaining each one and how they can work cohesively. I also started learning about and using closures in my other CS class so it was nice having been exposed to them already. The concept of decorators is still a little fuzzy to me because I’m stuck in the mindset of “a line of code will run as soon as the compiler reads it”, but I understand how they are used and the benefits to them.

What made you happy this week?

Honestly my team made me happy this week. Everyone is putting in so much effort for the project and they are all patient and helpful as we try to figure things out. Each member has taken the initiative of claiming a task and finishing it out to the best of their ability. I’m happy to be working with the people on my project team.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My tip-of-the-week is to utilize the resources that Professor Downing and the TAs have provided for us. Specifically, the projects from past semesters and their GitLabs. Looking through the GitLabs of previous students has helped me understand how certain concepts can be implemented when I have no idea how to start. I’m thankful Professor Downing allows us to have access to them and I think more people should take advantage of the opportunity he has provided us.