CS373 Fall 2020: Week 11

Hey everyone! My name is Akshay Mantri, and this is my Week 11 blog post for Software Engineering.

What did you do this past week?

This past week was quite busy. I worked on and finished Phase 3 of the Software Engineering project with my group. I had several large assignments due in my other classes, too. The interviews I had went well, thankfully.

What’s in your way?

Time was a nagger this past week, and it’ll be the same story next week. Physically and mentally, however, I feel great!

What will you do next week?

Next week will be somewhat busy, especially during the start of the week. I have 2 exams on Tuesday and multiple modules due for a couple of classes. I also have 2 big interviews coming up, so I will prep a little for them too.

If you read it, what did you think of The Dependency Inversion Principle?

The Dependency Inversion Principle was an important read, as it covered several essential guidelines that all software engineers should follow. The discussion of creating abstractions to connect higher level ideas to lower level ideas was engaging. The article also talked about how interdependence can cause rigidity, fragility, and immobility, all of which we should try to avoid in our code.

What was your experience of relational algebra in Python?

The way Professor Downing explained the principles of relational algebra made a lot of sense. I am very comfortable, as of right now, with this topic, and I can’t wait to start working with SQL!

What made you happy this week?

There were plenty of things that made me happy this week. I was able to finish all of my assignments properly. The Texas Longhorns won their game against the West Virginia Mountaineers. I got some time later in the week to play some Valorant. My interviews went well. There is a lot to be thankful for!

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick of the week is Grepper. I have actually mentioned this extension in the past, but I want to bring it to the forefront once more. The last time I talked about it, I mentioned that it was useful namely for common, simple computer science questions. Recently, however, I have increasingly started to notice Grepper showing answers for more complex questions as well. Grepper might be scraping from sources such as Stack Overflow, and it’s doing a wonderful job of it. I have been able to save plenty of time just over the past week by being able to see Grepper’s suggestions without having to skim through a link. I highly suggest the extension.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll be back next week!