Now that my college semester’s coming to a close, it’s time to reflect on what I’ve learned, or improved on so far. I’ve learned many valuable concepts and topics in my Software Engineering course and although we mainly applied it to web application development, they can be used in any form of software development.
As I was working on applications, I would run into the most problems when I went back to work on an existing application. Because of this, I had to learn about ways to update code where it would still maintain its original working state. This is called configuration management. In the world of software engineering, it is usually automated with the help of software such as Puppet and Ansible. I have not yet used these tools but there are steps that I take to manage my own code. Some methods that I’ve learned were naming my files and commits with appropriate descriptions that help other developers who are working on the code understand what changes were being made at the time. This is also backed by the version control system that is implemented by GitHub. Another method is to develop code with software maintainability in mind, that way someone who is new to the software can understand it and update it with minimal effort. Configuration management is important as it is used in almost all large and small projects.
There were tools in my development process that I learned how to use called user interface frameworks, or UI framework for short. A framework is a platform that provides generic functionality that can be manipulated by the user to fit their needs. Now a UI framework is specific to developing user interfaces. The time and effort that is saved by using UI frameworks can go towards more complex and important aspects of the component. The use of frameworks as a whole is widely used in software engineering and learning about how they work and their uses is something that will benefit me when working in the same field.
I learned many things so far in the field of software engineering. The projects and skills I gained in this class helped me land internships and will help me in securing a job in the near future. These are only a couple of the concepts that I believe are very important to anybody who wants to become a software engineer.