E6 Reflecting on Assignment 3

14 Dec 2021

1. Briefly describe your system (e.g. A store selling Pokemon game cards)

My system is a store selling diecast cars. There are three types of cars being sold; standard road cars and racing vehicles (stock and open-wheel). The fourth product page is a page that sells display cases for diecast cars.

2. Any notable shortcomings, bugs, problems, or additional features not implemented?

Security was one thing I did not focus much on. I did not do the extra credit assignment

3. Describe what you are most proud of about your system:

I’m comfortable with how the linkage to every page worked out. It ran smoothly transitioning from page to page, in my opinion. It’s not a hard thing to do, but that was one of the few things that was handled quite cleanly making this assignment. I’m pretty happy with how the navbar turned out considering how bad it looked in the beginning of the project. It displays the username, cart quantity, and all four product pages cleanly.

4. Describe what you are least happy with your system:

I’m least happy with my invoice display. A lot of people had nicer displays and I keep getting docked for how it’s looked, which I suspect is what will happen in this assignment too. Considering the amount of time I spent on other parts of this project, it looks better than it did before.

5. How was developing this assignment different than assignment #2?

Developing this assignment was different than Assignment #2 because everything was so specific whereas Assignment 2 was quite basic in comparison. Assignment 3 also involves using cookies and sessions for the user data instead of the querystring as well.

6. When you ran into a problem, what did you do to address it?

When I ran into a problem, I looked at other people’s code and compared it to what I was missing or misused. If I couldn’t solve my issue off of that, I asked Professor Port for help, and he helped diagnosed the problem.

7. Describe what worked well in doing this assignment?

Not a lot, if I’m honest. The end product looked good, but I needed an extension to complete it. I would say my knowledge is better since my help sessions with Professor Port explained how to do something rather than just copying the code.

8. Describe what did not work well in doing this assignment?

I think copying code and not knowing what it did hurt me. Trying to translate other people’s code into mine was a pain, and I feel like it ate up a lot of time that could’ve been spent on other things.

9. What did you learn from doing this assignment?

Knowing basic concepts is key. When I did get help from Professor Port and he was explaining stuff to me, I had this sort of blank face where my eyes were glazed over because there were some things I didn’t understand until he explained it.

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

I think if I could go back and do things differently, I would start the Assignments earlier. I lost a day cleaning up my Assignment 2 files, which was a result of losing a day cleaning up my Assignment 1. Even as I write this essay now, I still needed extra time to complete this Assignment 3. I also think if I made an appointment for help with Professor Port way earlier than I did, I could’ve completed this assignment on time.

11. 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

I estimate that I spent about (a) 25% thinking about how to do something, (b) 25% writing the actual code, and (c) the other 50% testing and debugging the code. I think copying other people’s code and modifying that helped cut down my time.

12. Assign an estimated percentage on the amount each team member contributed to the assignment (including yourself) and explain briefly your rationale for the percentage breakdown. Be sure to include an overview of what specifically you and your partners contributed (e.g. “I worked on the security and my partner 1 worked on personalization”)

I did not have a partner on this assignment. That said, Professor Port was a valuable resource.