Career Thoughts

I have learned a different angle of problem solving while working an IT support role. It is easy to invest a large portion of ones time going into a rabbit hole of Google and endless discussion forums to find that one small trick that will resolve the issue. However, from an end user perspective, some witness a sink hole of valuable time being taken away from a critical work timeline. There are many important questions to ask in problem solving but one of the most important ones to ask is the following :

“What are you trying to accomplish?”

With most technology implementations, there are many ways to do one thing. Share a file? Most people will give completely different answers. Sometimes the solution is not ‘resolving’ that given issue. Sometimes it is introducing the end user a totally new way of approaching their workflow. It might be possible to even improve on what they were previously doing.

This concept of problem solving can carry over to software development. There can be a fear of applying something novel. But without trying, it is hard to know what the end result will be. The goal is to build a pathway to an overall product solution. In the end, technology workers are there to support the business and create an environment that encourages growth. Sometimes this requires taking a step back and looking at the big picture.

Capstone Project Update

My team has the opportunity to work on the project – Citizen Science App for Kids. We held our first official team meeting today and started outlining the project structure and individual responsibilities. There were discussions that took place on the tradeoffs of various design and technology decisions.

• What kind of technologies should we use to build each element of the project?
• How should our database be structured?

The root of each of these questions comes down to a similar question:

“What are we trying to accomplish?”

I appreciate that this course emphasizes the creation of a plan document. Planning can be the hardest part in some cases. Getting the group on the same page is critical to project success. My team has decided on three main areas of role division:

• Mobile application – Flutter
• Web application – Flask (Python) / React
• Backend database – Firebase

My portion of the project is anticipated to be the web application. I am excited to work further on this project and cannot wait to update everyone once the ball starts rolling.

Flutter Thoughts

Since I took CS 492 – Mobile App Development, I have had an interest in Flutter and the potential of a unified app development platform. After brief exposure to native iOS and Android development, Flutter felt effortless in comparison. My favorite feature by far is how Flutter live updates upon code changes without a re-build required. This is gamechanging and I hope it makes it way into native OS development. I am excited to be involved in a project involving Flutter and wonder how it will play out with a group dynamic added in.