Software engineering is a complex field to major in and a non-stopping field of study. What is a non-stopping field of study mean? The answer is simple. Software engineers keep updating new technologies or concepts and technology hacks. Every year, something new might come out, and to be a great software engineer, you might want to learn it or at least know its basics. As of right now, I just finished Ics 314, and it was just the beginning. Never stop learning.
As I said above, software engineers kept updating new concepts or techniques over the years. It means there are many concepts out in the world that you could study, but not all of them are necessary to you. Courses of Ics 314 had taught me a lot of concepts, and I felt coding standards and open-source software development are the two that most stand out to me.
Why do coding standard matters? The purpose of coding standards is to make reviewers, including yourself, have an effortless experience with a piece of code that you are working on. Writing comments is part of the coding standard, and it is essential for a software engineer to have the habit of writing comments to your program. Why? Coding with comments is like a crosswalk without zebra crossing. Very confusing. Besides that, there are tools to help you with the coding standards. For example, if you use IntelliJ IDEA, you could use Eslint to help you out with help by showing you had Eslint errors. Coding standards are essential to beginners and benefit in the long term. It makes the experience much more manageable and more accessible for others. Also, it creates an excellent coding habit, and if you get employed, coding standards matter a lot. You don’t want to get fired for unhealthy coding habits. Doesn’t it feel good when you look at clean pieces of code?
How can open-source software development help you out? How can open-source software development help you out? Open-source software development is the development of software that is in public. So, people in public can review your code and learn from it. For example, if you are using Github, you could choose to make your repository public for every to see. Why is it a good thing to do? For example, it is a great way to show you people who interview you and the companies interested in you to start knowing about your skills by looking at your public repository. Also, software engineers were updating new features timely, and you could find open sources of them and learn to form them.
Learning in software engineering is endless. Studying in this field is complex and hard to master. The more you learn about it, the more difficult it seems. Also, while you are moving down the path, you are picking up memory from the past and using them as a tool for a brighter path. There are many more concepts I had learned in Ics 314 that I didn’t mention above, and I believe more concepts are waiting for me to learn and get a touch of it. Learning is endless, especially for software engineering.