Reflection on What I Learned in Software Engineering 2

10 May 2021

Unlike Software Engineering 1, in Software Engineering 2 we did not spend much time in a Discord classroom, and instead we spend much of our time in group meetings working on the HEI GHG tracker project. Much like the project that I have worked on from Software Engineering 1, this project revisits many of the core concepts we have learn throughout Software Engineering 1 and apply them in a real world work situation.

Code Reviews

Code reveiew was one of the new concepts that we have learned in Software Engineering 2, in fact we were continuously asked to review our codes with our teammates in class. At first I did understand the purpose of code reviews, but I did not gasp how important code reviews really are until my code was reviewed. Despite the fact that there was nothing major that was broken with my code, that was some improvment that could’ve been made, and I would’ven been completely oblivious to these problem if it were for the code reviews. These code review also help me understood and gave an idea of how the different parts of the project would work together before we could start it. Overall I found code reviews to be extremely helpful.

Working in large group

Software Engineering 2 was the first time I got to experience working with a large groups, in most other projects I’ve worked on the lagest group size was 3 - 6 persons and so I was both excited and intimidated the large group size. The first challenge we faced was to created a meeting schedule that could fit 9 different person, especially with groupmates who is in a different time zone. Using issue driven project management on Github and a lot of communication on Discord we were able to figure out many of the challenge we encountered. Through this experience I learned how Agile Project Management and communication could be impactful the a project with a large group, and I believe that this experience will be valuable in a workplace.

Satisfying Client Demands

I believe that the most unique part of the project is the fact that we have a real client. Unlike a project that is propose by a teacher/professor, the project was not created to fulfill certain benchmarks, but it was created to with a specific purpose in mind and with the goal for it to be used people who are outside of the college. While working on that project I feel that I am creating a real product, and I’ve heard that “The costumer don’t know what they want, until we show them” So we have to satisfy the demands of of our client, and create a product that is realistic, meets their requirement and exceed their expectation. At the end of this project I believe my group have achieve this, and I am very happy with the outcome.