The topic of this week is to describe the major breakthrough I had on this class. However, I think what has been most impactful is the accumulation of small breakthroughs scattered throughout this process. Every aspect about this project felt pretty new to me, even something as simple as working on a team with other students. While I have had other group projects in this course, none have matched the scale and depth of this project, where we build a mobile app and website from inception to completion. We are a team of four and one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is how we should organize ourselves. Figuring out how to manage ourselves efficiently was definitely an important breakthrough of this project. We ultimately divided the work into 4 roles: frontend, backend, and mobile, and team leader (myself) who would help on both frontend and backend of the teacher admin site. While I would not describe the role of the leader as overly demanding, it does require me to lead meetings and be able to provide guidance when the team is feeling split. The role was not something I felt super comfortable doing at the start, however I have had a breakthrough in my confidence in leading this project. I believe my broad perspective has enabled me to listen to the team and propose solutions. However we are all not entirely accustomed to discussing code, presenting a learning curve for us. I realized quickly that incorporating visuals whenever possible greatly aids in communicating ideas to the group. I think as a whole the group has gotten better at communicating with each other over complicated topics throughout this process.
On the technology side I have had small breakthroughs with all the various technologies employed in our project. For Google App Engine this included learning how to collaborate with others on the same project, how to deploy different versions of the project, and how to manage those versions, and how to manage ownership/permissions for the project. I have also had breakthroughs with git/github: it had been a while since I collaborated with others on git so I needed to refresh my knowledge. I had a breakthrough of understanding on how to set up branch rules, and a workflow, and how to use my IDE to simplify taking care of merge conflicts. This was also my first time using the developer tools within the browser, and I had a breakthrough in utilizing these tools to effectively debug issues. I also have had to develop my javascript and frontend skills. These breakthroughs, taken together, have illuminated my ability to research and comprehend computer science topics, which has been developed over the course of this degree. I have cultivated a (junior) developer’s way of thinking, and most of the time I am able to get the answers to the questions I encounter. While a developer can never know everything, the skill of research and problem solving is integral to the job.
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