After a crazy roller coaster into the semester and half way of that became a pandemic and transitioning into online classes, I had the opportunity to be part of a software engineering class and learn more about web application development than what I have known before. At the start of the class, I have written about the skills and experiences I hope to develop. All of things I have learned about software engineering have, of course, expanded my perspective on software development and what I am capable of doing in terms of web development.
One of the concepts I have learned in software engineering was User Interface Frameworks. After learning HTML and CSS, we got to implement Semantic UI into our code. Semantic UI is a development framework that have allowed us to use its components to create website layouts and easily implement interface designs that are responsive, while using human-friendly HTML. Looking beyond web application development, Semantic UI is all about being creative and being able to make pages look more interesting than what it would look like without it. To explain user interface frameworks beyond web application development, it’s like decorating something in order to expand the design and the looks of it. It is like an add on to HTML. There are all sorts of different components, themes, elements, connections, such as buttons, menu, card, dropdown, etc. User interface frameworks allows developers to maximize their web application in HTML. In my final project, my team and I were able to implement user interface frameworks into our web application and made it appealing as much as we could using Semantic UI.
Another concept I was able to learn more about was Agile Project Management. A style we’re able to use for our final project was Issue Driven Project Management. To understand more about agile project management is that it is comprised of various approaches to software development containing requirements and solutions through a team effort. The main benefit of agile project management is the ability to respond to issues as they arise throughout the course of the project. In issue driven project management, teams are able to complete and solve issues in their project by planning and complete it by breaking it into different stages/sections. In my final project, we had goals for every milestone and made them into issues. As a team, we could choose an issue to work on and improve the functionality of the application in order to complete the project. By completing the project step by step, we were able to accomplish what we have started. Beyond web application development, agile project management is just an approach to project management, but is flexible and more manageable and adaptable. Whatever project you have, you can apply agile project management to break it down into sections and stages. By applying agile project management in any type of project, it makes the project more organize and easier for the team to respond to changes quickly.
As my first semester in software engineering comes to an end, I am able to apply the concepts I have learned in future classes I will take as an ICS student. Throughout the semester, I was able to gain experiences in software engineering, and had the opportunity to create my own project using concepts, such as user interface frameworks and agile project management. Although such skills were used in a web application development, I could apply the concepts beyond that and make use of it any way I can in whatever situation, such as what my projects are in.