E5 - Reflecting on Assignment 2 Technical Essay

07 May 2021
  1. Provide a brief introduction to the assignment along with a link to this page for further details.

Assignment 2 was basically an extension of our assignment 1. We had to create a basic file I/O system to include on our website. That was completed by creating a login page to go along with a registration page. New users were able to register to see their purchase as well and returning customers can login to continue to the invoice. More information about this blog post can be found here : https://dport96.github.io/ITM352/morea/150.Assignment2/experience-Assignment2_retrospective.html

  1. What did you learn from this assignment?

What I learned from this assignment as well as this class in general is that I need to stop my horrible habit of procrastinating. I procrastinated on this assignment which led me to submitting something I am not proud of and something I regret to say that I’m in the process of fixing.

  1. Did you work with a partner? Assign an estimated percentage on the amount each team member contributed to the assignment (including yourself).

I worked alone on this project.

  1. How did you get help when you needed it? What did you need help with?

For me I looked things up online. I rewatched class recordings as well as looked back at labs we completed in class. However, I do regret not asking Professor Port for help when I needed it. I thought I could figure it out but that is proven to be difficult. I definitely will ask him for help on my assignment 3.

  1. How was developing this assignment different than assignment #1?

Assignment 2 was definitely more challenging so I really had to understand the nitty gritty of data storage and retrieval since it was all mostly done on the server. We had to make 2 new pages and link them up to my existing pages on the server using the “POST” method so that was new and challenging.

  1. Estimate the % of time you spent (a) thinking about how to do something, (b) writing code (but do not include testing, (c) testing and debugging.

a. 15% - Once I got an idea on how to do something I started to work.

b. 25% - Writing code didn’t take too long because I borrowed code we completed during our class labs.

c. 60% - This is taking me the longest to complete because for one, I’m still working on making my assignment 2 work.

  1. Describe what worked well with this project? What did not work well?

One thing that worked well is I think for me is having a better understanding of more complicated code. As well as creating new sheets to eventually connect to existing sheets. When I’m finished I think I will have a greater appreciation for what I was able to accomplish during this assignment. One thing that didn’t go well is trying to fully understand how to connect things on the server and how much longer this assignment took me to complete than I expected. I am almost finished, however my stubborn self not asking for help when I first needed it didn’t help my cause of completing this at all.

  1. If you could go back in time and do things differently, what would you do differently?

If I could go back and do things differently, I will definitely start early and as soon as I need help not hesitate to ask for it. Those two things I did the opposite of and it really hurt me this project.