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CST 338 - Week 1

This week was the first week of class, and as such, I did a bunch of usual first week of class stuff, which included setting up (more like dusting off and modifying!) my Java development environment and ensuring I was following the style guide while doing the assignment. Overall, it was a nice warm up to getting back into writing Java programs as I haven't done so in several months when I was busy working with Python. Additionally, the discussion I participated in about open source software and the issue of security was an interesting topic to read and write about. 

Speaking of development environment, I have used both Eclipse and IntelliJ before, and I used to prefer Eclipse over IntelliJ in the latter's earlier versions but now I prefer IntelliJ for several personal reasons. I find myself more comfortable using it in its current state, and knowing IntelliJ is definitely helpful when doing Android programming as Android Studio is largely based off IntelliJ.

I consider myself proficient in C and Java at this point in my career. I can get by using C++ and am familiar with it. I can also code in x86 assembly and Python, although I still feel very much like a novice in those two languages, in additional to MySQL and database programming in general. However, my mindset as a programmer is to always think of myself as a student - I cannot possibly master every programming language or aspect of software development, but I believe that constantly learning new things, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, and keeping an open mind are important to success in the future.

I am still not entirely sure about the field of computer science that I want to pursue, but I have been the most interested in embedded systems programming or lower level work. I am surrounded by a bunch of embedded developers at my job and I think what they do is quite interesting compared to the front end people who seem to get yelled at over CSS and JavaScript all day. Different managers, I guess. I'm glad my boss isn't so harsh on me! 

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