More PIA-ing in COMP 1.
Justin: "OMG- Eh Kian Boon! You must take a picture of this! Must have me in the picture too okay?"
-click- *flash*
-click- *flash*
-click- *flash*
Kian Boon:"Eh Wei Man you must put your hand here - den got picture of Wei Man's hand typing.."
-click- *flash*
Wei Man: "What the hell!?"
Justin: "Eh this is evidence of Extreme coding okay? Eh Boon I look horrible in this picture - Yuhan! Take a better pic!"
Yuhan:*click - * "Uh, did I take a picture?"
Justin: "What the hell did you press?!"
Kian Boon: "Ahem, that is Extreme Data entry okay, not Extreme programming. Eh, and stop laughing la."
-click - *flash*
Justin: "Eh, serious lah!"
-click - *flash*
Yuhan: "Nah, this one la, you both look very serious in this one."
Justin: "Okay, put on Facebook. Wei Man you go on putting data into myphpadmin arh, you've got to know enough to show prof ben by tmr."
*Wei Man enters data*
15 minutes later....
Wei Man: "Eh Justin, isn't there a way to do this faster? Like importing straight from excel?"
Justin: "uh..."
Yuhan & Bryan:"Yes! Can! No Problem!"
Wei Man: "Damn you, Justin!"
************************************************
So ends my first attempt at psuedo-coding (i.e. data entry into database). It seems pretty straight-forward after some coaching from Justin who helped label and and place the information in an excel sheet for me to refer to. Other than some exceptions with special conditions, I could do it without Justin's hovering supervision. Now only the question remains - will I pass Prof Ben's test? >_< style="font-weight: bold;">So, about Software Engineering...
After I left the class that day, I went out with a friend for dinner. We ended up discussing Buddhism -
He said, "The problem with people is that they have too many things in their minds at one time. All the different thoughts are distracting them from progressing with their lives and solving their problems..."
I said, "OMG! That's Abstraction!"
So of course he asked - "What is abstraction...I was talking about meditation... -_-lll" And I had to explain the whole thing about how there's this thing in software engineering where you hide all the distracting information and just reveal the parts that are important to you so you can concentrate on the important parts to think clearer and solve questions faster.
So *heh heh* Abstraction isn't a special case of SOC. ^_^ Its applicable to real life too..
Oh and just a note: Decomposition is actually one of my favorite methods of approaching a problem - I really think that the 5 principles taught in software engineering is applicable to many aspects of thinking and planning in life. ^_^
*******
Regarding the Scrum presentations, I was very impressed with Zihan's scrum-thingy invention because it sounded very efficient, and a very good solution to a production problem. Regrettably, it is only workable with a) a small group of bonded people, b) where everyone understood exactely what everyone else was doing.
The program that Zihan used, Track, works like the other production programs that I used in my company - Devtrack and Perforce - which I didn't have a chance to present. Devtrack tracks all the tasks that people are working on at the moment, allows people to update real time when they have finished their tasks, and allowed people to see how tasks are passed from one person to another.
The problem was training the huge number of people to all use the program when they didn't see any real benefit from it because it felt like just another time wasting administrative procedure. The other problem was that the project group was continuously expanding at the rate of about 2 people per week, so it was hard to get the synergy and bonding going because everything was in a constant state of flux. Unlike Zihan's committed group who knew each other (and their end goal) well, it was not easy to implement Zihan's system at my company, no matter how good the technology/method was.
I'm starting to believe that it is much easier to motivate and handle a small group than a large group. Even if its a large group, I think the big group should be broken up into small groups with a common goal so as to improve bonding and motivation to increase efficiency.. Its not so much the method or technology, its the people and the bonding that ultimately motivates and drives the project.
***
On Zit Seng's talk..I'm actually quite lost, but I was very impressed with his passion and how he made the talk interesting with stories. I think he's a very good speaker, just regret that I'm not well versed with the technical programming terms so I can't really understand what's going on - Hong Ting summarized it for me - basically if there's problems with the application, it can be a server problem, a network problem, or a programming problem within the app, so its really hard to figure out what's the critical problem and you have to do lots of testing. I got the part where its sometimes a programming problem with the app - just have to use abit of common sense to solve it.
I was very amazed when Zit Seng talked about the smooth logistics at the 80,000 over participant Networking session overseas, because I know from first-hand experience how hard it is to organize an event with just 100 participants and all the assorted problems that come with feeding, registering, and taking care of their welfare for one night. I would love to learn their secrets..
Reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend over the deplorable condition of student societies in NUS: He spoke of how overseas student organizations can handle 2,500 participants and invite distinguished guests for their yearly political events with no trouble at all, while the Singaporean version bungled up with only 300 participants. Is it a Singaporean thing, after all? To suck at logistics? Why? Has no one really bothered to ask for advice from overseas? Or we are just not committed to logistics and don't think they are important?
(Bah. At any rate, my own opinion is that student societies are too fleeting to succeed significantly.)
***
That about sums it up - sorry for the late post, I was rushing other modules with crazy deadlines too, working on 4 projects this semester, dying, dying, dying. But I blog long and I think hard okay, and I need like a space of 2 hours or so to properly sit down and think/blog - couldn't have planned it in during the last 2 weeks..>_< forgive me? ^_^
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Random quote of the day: "Any good programmer will have the Ctrl+S syndrome" -Bryan
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