Reflections - rsanchez-wsu/jfiles GitHub Wiki

Hello all, This page is a compilation of our teams final thoughts and reflections about how the Fall 2016 semester went; working on the JFiles project. This is where each member discussed what we came into the semester expecting, what actually happened, and other things of this nature. We all hope that you enjoy working on this project as much as we did this semester.

Christoper Adams [The Genius]

Filler.....

Brian Denlinger [The Other One]

Filler.....

Alexander Magill [President Harambe]

I came into this semester is a semi-unique position; I am already a full-time Level 2 Systems engineer. Over the summer the co-op I started and have held since February 2nd decided to hire me on without my degree, full time. Coming into the semester, I felt like this semester was going to be uneventful and frankly boring. I already knew how to work within a team as I have done so for the past year and a half and I did not see much benefit in the class. Luckily, I was completely wrong and I enjoyed this class a lot. First, I had never really used GitHub before, and learning how 30-ish students could work together in this regard, using branches and commits. It was fascinating a really good learning experience for myself. Additionally, I learned more-so than ever how imporant documentation is. I have done a good amount of documentation in the workforce over the past 2 years however, preparing documents so a completely different body of people can pick up and go is a completely new adventure for me. I hope that we did a well enough job preparing documents and past issues so the transition is as smooth as can be, and you have as much fun on this project as we did. May Haramabe last forever in our hearts.

Michael Morath [The New Guy]

I came into this class with virtually zero idea what to expect. Up until this point, my CS assignments largely consisted of only myself. I knew full well that realistically software usually worked that way and generally had teams of multiple people working together. The work we did in this class in multiple teams of multiple people of varying skill levels and schedules on a large project really put the pieces in place for me and showed me what it is really like. Unlike some people in this class, I've had little opportunity to work on something like this in the past and it was really enlightening for me. I realized after reading the code and documentation of my teammates and the other teams that I've got a lot of work left to do in thinking through and understanding the code of others. My flaws came to light in this project and I now know where I need to focus. These flaws aren't limited to merely understanding of code either but also personal things like my lack of confidence and willingness to delve into areas that I didn't understand out of fear of messing up. I only wish that I had known these things and worked more on them before taking this class so that I could have benefited even more but nevertheless this class was utterly amazing and i'm really grateful for having taken it. I now know what I have to do and knowing that is half the battle for bettering yourself. It was a learning experience for all of us and I can only hope that our documentation and description is enough to assist those coming in after us. You guys will have a very different but equally enlightening experience from what we had and I can only hope for the best for you all. Hopefully it opens your eyes as much as it did mine.

Tyler Trippel [The Intern]

Coming into this class, I had a decent amount of experience with software development projects. However, once the class really kicked off, I quickly began feeling that I was way in over my head. There were definitely weeks where I had no motivation to work on the project because I didn't even know where to start. Looking back, I can definitely tell that I have grown from taking this class. I have learned the importance of setting goals, especially when there is a lot to be done. I have also learned that you should never be scared to implement your thoughts in a project. This project allowed us to use our creativity to actually make a difference in the project. I also learned that working in a team environment can really increase the effectiveness of a project. Having team members to bounce ideas off of really helps the project be the best it can be.