Cody Codes Code

This week, our group finished recording and editing our capstone project video and prepared our presentation for the capstone festival. Although I wish the capstone festival was held in person (and it could not due to current circumstances), I am excited to show off our project and hard work to other computer science students, friends, and family. I hope they'll enjoy it and learn something cool while doing so. 

This week, our group made the last touches to CONVEE, our AAC application for our capstone project, and then we proceeded to record and publish the (first) draft of our video (if it's approved, it'll be the last draft). I'm very proud of the three of us and what we have accomplished a little over eight weeks. It's been rewarding to watch our application grow from the initial planning stages to what it is now. Abby plans to take over CONVEE after capstone and expand on it further, and I'm positive she'll do great things with it in the future. I might still help out with development and other related stuff once in a while. I also took the ETS Computer Science Field Test, which was a very disappointing experience. First, the test is too wide in scope, and it is littered with questions about specific niche topics not always taught in classes. Second, setting up the testing application was slow and awkward, and I had to wait 30 minutes for the proctor to set everythi

This week, our group completed a major milestone in our project by finishing the front end of our application, marking it as a "feature complete". We also conducted our initial round of user acceptance tests and received plenty of useful feedback, comments, and suggestions for the final stages of development and eventual deployment.  As a test engineer, I also interact with end customers doing software system test, so I understand quite well the process of conducting tests and then signing off said tests if they meet all requirements as specified. Since my company must comply with Department of Defense standards, the "rules of engagement" for testing and product acceptance are much stricter than our standards for capstone, but I can imagine similar rules would be applied to other students doing industry projects. Also, I got my first experience writing a test procedure from scratch by myself, as even at my job I am not responsible for writing procedures but I am acc

This week, our team finished most of the major features of our application, CONVEE - aside from front end style components and changes to the user settings page, our application is almost feature complete. I am proud of our group for our accomplishments and making it this far in the program. Additionally, we also finished updating our ILP pages and put together our video outline for the project video. As I have a good amount of experience now in video production (I have edited almost every single required video in each class I've taken so far, both solo and group), I am looking forward to producing this one. This week's topic covered job interviews. I don't have much experience as an interviewer myself, but one of the tips I received from my manager about interviews was to answer each question confidently, even if you feel like you don't know the answer. I feel as if that approach can backfire at times, however it's always good to approach a new or unknown situa

This week, we finished our ILP portfolios and turned in the final versions of our resume and cover letter. My group also completed the first part of the capstone report. I'll admit that creating a portfolio showcasing my past work was not at the top of my priority list when I first started studying computer science, although at this point in my educational and professional career I've learned how important it is to have such a portfolio. Like other creative professions, having a solid body of work to show to a potential employer, or even for personal documentation is one of the best ways to display your talents as an engineer. Also, all the assignments I've completed during my academic career, both at CSUMB and elsewhere, have given me a good start to my portfolio. I tend to prefer classic, plain styling like  Brian Kernighan's  home page (he has a pretty nice portfolio too), although I've come to appreciate highly stylized portfolios that make use of WebKit ani

This week, our group continued working on the current iteration of our capstone project. Sebastian has done a fantastic job so far setting up the baseline code/master branches for both the client and server, and we have a good starting point to expand on. Progress is going well and development continues. For our group meeting this week, there were several items/tips/good practices from the "Effective Meetings" week that we followed:  1. The purpose of the meeting was clear: similar to a Scrum meeting, we discussed current work in progress and what was finished last week, along with any technical issues in development. 2. Agenda was clear and on topic. 3. Action items were discussed and assigned. Since I've been back to work in the office and lab and attending daily scrum meetings for software test over the phone, I've been making note of what I think is effective regarding teleconferences and trying to implement them into our own group meetings.  Resume