C.S. Adventures

It’s been a little while since the last blog post, so I’ll bring you up to date. I got assigned the project I wanted which is, “Cloud based Algorithmic Trading” The goal of this project is to create a program that can optimize trading algorithms and show the user various data points to help them determine and create a strong trading algorithm. With the stretch goal of perhaps integrating this with a stock brokerage and allowing for automated trades based on a given algorithm. All in all I am very excited to be working on this, even though it is a tad daunting.

In the past few weeks our team has been working on breaking the project down into functional areas and assigning them to team members. We also have drafted our design document to specify how we plan to make this project come to fruition. The function area I am assigned to is the front end of the project, so its up to me to figure out how we want to implement a solid user interface. After a little research into the options for this I decided to use React.

I have utilized React before, but I am honestly not very well versed in it. So, I have been doing some digging into it, watching some tutorials and trying to get a better understanding of it. As I have learned more about React I can see how it seems like a very useful tool for creating user interfaces. All in all, I am slowly growing more confident with it, but I’m sure I wont be completely comfortable with it until I have seriously used it for a while.

I believe that is all I have to update on my adventures in computer science so far. Our projects v0.0.1 is due in about two weeks, so I am sure I will be posting updates on that in the next blog post.

Farewell!

Hello all! Welcome to my Adventures in Computer Science blog. My name is Ronson. I live in Eugene Oregon with my wife, and have lived in the area my entire life. When I am not working or doing school work, you will typically find me fishing, playing pool with friends, or working on one of my cars. I also have a hobby of brewing my own beer and wines.

My interest in computers first started when I was a kid, probably about 10 years old, from playing video games, and figuring out how to download mods for my favorite games. From there I also got into computer hardware and started building my own computer. I was shocked at how simple a lot of the computer hardware is these days to install yourself.

Once my college journey began, I started my 2 years at Lane Community College with the original intention of going for a major in chemistry. Fairly quickly I realized that although I was passionate about it, chemistry was not what I wanted a career in. And so started my computer science journey. After my 2 years at community college I transferred to Oregon State University. I have now had 1 full year at OSU and this is the start of my second. So far I have really enjoyed learning all of the technologies and concepts presented in the various computer science classes I have taken here. I especially enjoy the lower level programming languages C/C++, partially because that is what I primarily worked with in my first 2 years of college, but also because I like the low level data and memory manipulation it requires (even if it makes some simple tasks much harder).

Well, I believe that is all for introductions. I am eagerly awaiting to find out what project I will be working on for the capstone course here at OSU, and will be posting updates on my project as the year progresses here on this blog.