ICS 413 Soft Engineering final thoughts

ICS 413 seemed valuable because it may be the only class that teaches how to program in a professional setting. That's what I thought at first. What I think I'll value from this class most is the level of preparation I received in programming and project management. Over the course of this semester our class worked on continuous integration tools, open source software development, project health and even making a portfolio. These things are really crucial to preparing me and making me feel prepared for a professional career in programming.
I'll start off by saying that the lecture videos aspect of this class was helpful in constantly reminding me how things should be. As helpful as a lecturer may be, I don't think people are comfortable making professors repeat a certain topic over and over again.
Software Integration is a topic I was not familiar with at the beginning of this class, but now I can understand it and appreciate the role it plays in making a project that has good flow. It can help programmers make progress, and what's more important is that it makes things a lot faster and easier.
Open source software was something I had a idea about, but now I got the history of it as well. It's given me perspective about the technology world and society as it is today. This idea of sharing software and making contributions to a project is very comforting. If the world is truly connected, then anybody can contribute. I am very excited about the idea of many people sharing and contributing to the body of work in any project. I'd like to think it is perpetuating progress. History has shown that communication and the distance between people has been a big road block to the sharing of ideas and advancements in technology.
This semseter we also used something called software ICU. I wasn't not familiar with it at all and didn't know you could do something like that. We setup sensors in the programs we used like eclipse and ant. Then when we used those programs it showed how well we used them and how often. It is a reflective way of looking at our progress in a project and whether the habits are healthy. If progress is steady and updates are added incrementally then it's healthy. However, it can also show that you spent the whole night before the due date working on the project in order to get it done. I think it is very practical to use this to kind of keep yourself honest.

Lastly I was able to develop my online persona using this blog and through working on the projects. It's a big plus! I was really scared that once I graduated I wouldn't have anything to show propective employers. I'm always getting emails from my counselor with employers asking for people in the field that have a year or two of
programming experience. How can I have experience if nobody hires me?

Overall, this class has been a positive influence on me because of how many I learned. Of course I had to work my butt off to get a good grade. I think it's made me a better programmer.

GreenDepot Project

I've been working on the GreenDepot and version 2.0 is out. Although it has some flaws in it, it has come a long way from version 1.0. Take a look at this url http://code.google.com/p/greendepot/. I think there are improvements to be made and new features that could help users. I've already implemented some styling changes to the pages. I think it looks a lot better, but I definitely need some input from other people. Please leave feedback.

The GreenDepot project

The deadline for this project was always at the back of my mind during the time our group worked on it. I have to say that I honestly had a tremendously fun time working on GreenDepot version 2.0. Unlike working on version 1.0, there was no overhead in creating the structure of our web application. Once the initial functions set up, we started throwing ideas around and figuring out how improve our application. Granted, the project was probably the worst application in our class at the version 1.0 phase. I feel that we made great progress and feel really proud of our work.

It started on the second week of November. Our groups were chosen and I was partnered up with Nate and Edwin. We had some trouble getting together to meet because of our varying schedule. Night was the only time we could meet and talk, so we talked over google chat. And for a time that sufficed, but now that I look back I think the few times we met up outside of class were really valuable. Those times allowed us to talk and make sure we were on the same page with each other.

GreenDepot is a web application that uses wicket as the basis. Wicket allows programmers to just use html a markup language and java. The application is geared toward displaying data in a meaningful manner, using WattDepot as the source for all the data. WattDepot is a open source software project that allows developers to get simulated data from the Oahu power grid. This software was the foundation for GreenDepot. Without it, we wouldn't have anything to work with. Using this data we displayed it in two ways.

First there is the StopLight page. This page shows you a meter with green, yellow and red, and acts as a sort of stoplight. It will generate data using WattDepot and based on our thresholds for what is a low carbon emission time and what is high, we indicate green for a good time and red for a bad time for using eletricity. We also provide suggested hours on the side which indicate data from yesterday which hours were best.

Secondly there is the GridInfo page. It serves as a chart that will display the 24 hours data from the date you chose as input. Right now, we have a start date input and an end date input. This way you can set the time as long as you like to get an idea of the carbon emission, whether it be for a day or ten days. This was implemented in a much easier way using google charts. I've really come to love all the software tools google offers. I never knew that google had invested so much into developing so much software for users everywhere. There is a lot to look at when you click that "more" tab in their front page.

More recently, I've added a contact page for information pertaining to our project and also changed the layout of the page. It has a smoother look and I think it doesn't look as junkie as it used to. Before the page had too much stuff that distracted the user. Now it can focus the user to the results of the page and what we have to say.

This project had some bumps, but I've tried to work on it daily and the software ICU has shown that the development side has been healthy.


This project was really hard. Wicket was hard to learn and I struggled at first. But I learned a lot. What amazed me was the amount of time I spent on this. I was really excited for this project. It really drew my attention and I think it shows that I could do this as a profession. Writing software and creating applications has a great appeal for me and I would love to continue doing it.