Week 3: every detail counts

Earlier in the week, I realised one lesson:  if I see any form of bug in my code, I need to take note and write it down to address it.

In the midst of rushing for time, I didn't check if the user authentication was working. Fortunately, the thought came into my mind to test it out and to my horror, I (again) rushed to fix it.

Also, while using Facebook's Javascript SDK, I referred to the documentation at the Facebook developer's app. When I started speed reading and doing CTRL F, I compromised on my understanding of how some APIs work. From that, I wasted still some precious time reading stack overflow and trying to figure if some forum threads are talking about the same problems as I'm facing. I could have saved the time if I read the official documentation more clearly ):

Working with my group: everyone in the group is really contributing so much, especially when we are a 3 member team. My group member encourages us very often, and this kept me grounded. I guess I have to admit that I'm still an emotional worker and not made of solid steel that can perform optimally in every situation. This module un-subtle-ly teaches stress management - working under pressure.

I won't die now, not yet.

Second assignment! Its great to meet my new group, and the ideas seemed to flow well as we were storyboarding our presentation. The app that we are doing a presentation on is Color. I think its interface is really good for a mobile app, not like those that crams everything unnecessary at once and has adverts as well. It was fun also playing with the app as we "visited" each other and requested each other for a broadcast. (:

~Pei Yi

Week 2: Learning to walk before a marathon

Our second lecture! Even though I know that the slides and all the materials have been uploaded onto the workbin, I am going to type my post without referring to them. I believe that there are a few takeaways from today's session that are worth remembering.

For the first segment, we were reminded of some key principles of software engineering. 

An inquisitive person came up to me when I was 10 years old and asked, "what are you doing?"

"Trying to earn CCA points by joining computer club!", I replied.

Derp(ina) - stupidity / ignorance

A curious person came up to me when I was 15 years old and asked, "what are you doing?"

"Competing with my friend to see who gets more downloads in our blogskin designs!", I answered.

A nosy person came up to me now as I'm 20 years old and asked, "what are you doing?"

"Heck the CAP. I'm learning how to create awesome web applications!"

Ah, the motivation counts. 

Another thing I wanted to write about is user experience. There are conventional ways of arranging page layouts according to the amount of information and type of information that needs to be communicated. And even for non-verbal / non-text information too. For example, my colleague in my previous internship pointed out to me that the "next", "ok" or submit button would be good if its placed in the center or right. 

I'm still thinking about the layout of the facebook assignment. But anyway, its really easy to change. We'll gather feedback after its up and running, we can make improvements then.

Scrum: My groupmate Gia loved the idea so much that he set up the tracking document even before Justin finished his presentation! I went in and wrote my task as "Facebook plugin". But Gia wanted me to break it down with more details. I'll work on that! (: Its a great feeling to try something new.

From Jonathon's presentation: He shared that when it gets closer to the deadline, people get really stressed and get more irritable. I can really identify to that and feel that its really important to consider others besides my own self.

Progress concerning my facebook assignment is getting started (esp for front end)! We simulated it on pen and paper and its quite a ball of fun! Keep in touch for more updates.

~Pei Yi

Week 1 workshop

Hi again!

The workshop on Saturday covered: setting up AWS, using Git, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and AJAX.

I really respect how much effort our seniors put in for our workshop. There were even seniors who weren't giving a presentation but there to just offer behind the scenes help.

Setting up AWS: It would have been a painful process without the help of Su Yuen guiding us through and with a installation guide on IVLE. For me, I just followed the steps through blindly, I guess it wouldn't be too important to know exactly about the various settings and options for now? At first I was quite grossed out by the looooong public dns, but since its provided free, maybe thats why hmm.

When the Git session got going, I was abit blur at first, wondering how he got his command line (I was typing  vigorously into my cmd prompt and nothing interesting was happening). Then I opened the Git GUI. Luckily I was clicking around randomly and "hey whats this?" - I found where to get the command shell. (Select repository -> Click tools -> Open a shell here) 

But my judgement is that its better to stick to the GUI. I feel that the important features can be easily accessed with the GUI and we don't have to memorise the commands this way. 

We had a good lunch break, I liked the food!

The workshop continued with Javascript, AJAX, PHP and MySQL. The important takeaway is that its not difficult to pick it up as a beginner given that I had some programming background in CEG and my past internship. But to truly build something awesome is another thing altogether. Resourcefulness + creativity + hardwork. I was not following too much since I read the slides the day before. Instead I was trying to use Eclipse after installing the PHP package. Since I had installed my own local server, I was trying to write PHP commands to access the database and fetch some data. I got stuck and decided to go back home and try to fix it.

So that night, after traveling 234923974829 miles home to (the land of ) tanah merah, I finally got apache working and my database can be accessed! (: (: (:

But I'm not 100% satisfied. The thing is that this database that I'm accessing right now is my own localhost which is the home server (which should be used for testing purposes). But how about the database that I created with AWS? How do I write the MySQL connection to access the online server? I will work on this after I publish this post. I welcome any inputs, please comment below! (:

~Pei Yi

Week 1: Getting to know everyone

First week!

I had a rough week. I caught the flu bug! Healthy food like bibimbap and chicken salad, along with lots of luo han guo and honey drinks.

The first lecture was really light hearted. I came into the room feeling like it was me against the rest of the people (as it always has been in this bell curved environment I exist in) But I came out feeling somewhat surprised with how friendly some fellow classmates were.

Towards the end when we played the bingo game, even though I couldn't fill up any of the blank remaining slots, some of them just let me fill up whichever slot that suits me even if it has already been taken. great classmates!

The seniors' testimonials really scared me and I couldnt sleep well at all that night. ):

After some (alot) of thought, I realised that I could change my perspectives! Since (almost all) of my classmates have a wealth of programming & design knowledge, I can learn from them too.

I had a few group meetings so far, and I really like my team's dynamics. We are all very open with sharing our opinions and can communicate well. I _really_ want to contribute as much as possible to my team (:

Looking forward to tomorrow's workshop.

~Pei Yi