Final Thoughts on ICS 413

Today was the last official class meeting for my software engineering class, and as a final assignment, we were asked to write a blog post summarizing our thoughts on software engineering and the course in particular.

I started the class not knowing what exactly software engineering was, but being excited about the opportunity to work with others to develop code. In all previous classes, we received very stern warnings that we were not to work with others on homework assignments, so I developed a very strong mentality of programming everything on my own with only minimal conversations between my classmates and I regarding our code. As a result, I took the class wanting to see what it was like to program with others.

Throughout the course, I've learned that software engineering is a complex process, but that there are many tools available for programmers to use to help them do software engineering with the least possible pain. Before the class, I didn't know how complicated it was to share a project with new developers; nor did I anticipate how difficult it would be to have two people working on the same programming project. Among the tools that we learned in class were JUnit, to test the code for constant functionality; Ant, to standardize the development environment; Subversion, to facilitate sharing code; and Google Project Hosting, to provide hosting for the project code and a way to track issues on the project. All of these tools were difficult to learn or get used to at first, but once I got a basic understanding of them, they definitely made group work a lot easier.

I think that one of the most important aspects of the class for me wasn't necessarily the programming experience, but the development of a professional person that I can use to present myself to graduate schools and prospective employers. This includes not only the programming and software engineering skills that I picked up on in the course, but also my professional portfolio and this blog. These are both items that I will be able to continue to update and to use to present my programming skills and my knowledge of software engineering.

This class was a lot of work, and I definitely spent more time working on assignments for this class than for any of my other courses this semester (and possibly any of the other courses in my undergraduate career). However, because of this, I feel that I have a much better understanding of what is involved in the creation, development, and deployment of a programming project. I now know how much time is involved in the process and I know of the tools available for use to facilitate software engineering. It was a tough experience, but it was a good experience to have had.