CST 438 - Module 1

 Week 1,

This is the first week of the course CST 438 Software Engineering. The contents of this first module are to first teach of the main differences between software engineering and programming. Both involve programming, but software engineering also takes into account the maintainability and sustainability of code over time, which can be influenced by many factors. There are a few terms brought up by the textbook "Software Engineering at Google by Winters, Mantric and Wright" which can be helpful to remember such as Hyrum's Law, shifting left, the Beyonce Rule, etc.

Additionally, we were introduced to the REST API, which stands for Representational State Transfer, and allows us to exchange and manipulate data over the internet using the common HTTP methods such as GET, POST, DELETE, and PUT. We did something similar in the Internet Programming course, except this time, we are keeping in mind the practices that goes into software engineering.

Initially, for a course in Software Engineering, I thought it would cover how a team would make a larger scale project than your average programming task which usually doesn't last very long. Turns out I was correct to assume this, but I really didn't have much of an idea that goes into this, at least in a professional sense. After completing the first week's module, my opinion hasn't changed much, but I am interested to learn how a team or company like Google handles long term projects.

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