Helen Keller quote: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” arguably my summary of my ICS 414 Fall 2020: Software Engineering II course. During ICS 414, I was on a team of 7 developing web applications with real clients. In team development, the most important thing is teamwork, communication and plans, which I learned while working on this project. This web application is built using the Meteor framework and the React JavaScript library, which is the same as Software Engineering I course.
Teamwork is very important, and the most basic teamwork is getting all the work done on time. For team projects, if someone doesn’t finish the assigned work, then others will have to finish it and slow down the process by not being able to move on. Communication plays an important role in the development process because it helps other teammates know that everything is going in the right direction, and when there is a problem, they can call for help from their teammates to quickly resolve the problem. I learned with great pain how important it is to have a complete plan for a project before starting development. Our team didn’t have a complete plan for the entire application at the beginning. Therefore, code must be rewritten when plans are improved or changed during development.
This was one of the best courses I’ve taken during my computer science studies because I had the opportunity to work with real clients. It was like a foot into the real world. I learned a lot about why we need to plan everything before we start developing the application, and the benefits of communicating with others. Also, the power of teamwork, and how to work with people who don’t work. Overall, a really great and amazing software development work experience.