CS373 Spring 2021: Tim Nguyen
Week 5
1. What did you do this past week?
My group and I met up daily starting Tuesday, and I would say that we have been making good progress as well as getting to know each other. So far, I think my team is made up of fun, cool, and unique individuals, and we all get along pretty well. Looking forward to making an amazing website with them!
2. What’s in your way?
At first, my team and I struggled with our first proposed idea with Project Lift Off that focused on space exploration, but we did not have good APIs to use for the models we wanted and their connections. Nonetheless, my team and I were able to bounce back on one of our backup ideas, and we are now focusing on developing a website called Cultured Foodies!
3. What will you do next week?
Next week, I will finish up deploying our website using AWS as well as fulfilling all the requirements we have for Phase I with the team. We’ll lay out specifics on the design of the website and how we want the layout to be. Hopefully, we will be able to accomplish much work each and every day next week.
4. If you read it, what did you think of the Single Responsibility Principle?
I think the Single Responsibility Principle paper is a great reminder for all engineers to remember that we should make programming simple. It kind of reminded me of my first CS312 assignment, Song.java, where you print out lyrics to the song, “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”. I first had created println statements all in the main method. However, my TA pointed out that it was wrong and it should not be that okay. As a past CS312 TA, I told my students that you shouldn’t let one method do all the work. You should break it down as much as you can. I’ll carry on this principle with me while developing this website and in my future career.
5. What was your experience of IDB1 and reduce? (this question will vary, week to week)
IDB1 is going pretty well so far I would say. I enjoy learning and actually figuring out things myself, but I do ask my teammates for help if I am confused with certain things. I learned more about APIs and experiment with AWS. I think my team and I are in pretty good shape. I have seen reduce before in my previous class last semester for neural networks and found it to be very useful! It was fun doing the Hackerrank challenge and creating my own my_reduce function.
6. How did you fare in the storm?
The snowstorm was pretty brutal. For four days in my apartment, we had no power or running water. It was below 50 degrees and we ate cold food. Despite this, I am grateful that it was not as worse as other people's experiences. I hope everyone is doing better now and enjoying the sunny weather.
7. What made you happy this week?
What made me truly happy was when my electricity came back on. I am more grateful than ever for the things we treat for granted. I felt my soul return to my body when I was able to take a hot shower and go into a warm bed.
8. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My tip-of-the-week is to avoid AWS Amplify! Our amazing TA, Caitlin, has mentioned that past students could not figure out how to use Docker with AWS Amplify. Follow this link below instead.
Although AWS Simplify may be easier to set up, I think it will make your life easier when Phase II comes around.
