The first programming language I learned was C. I was taking EE160 from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It was hard at first, but I slowly got used to the syntax and the logic used in it. I vividly remember being perplexed on for loops, especially nested for loops. The way it iterated over itself took some time to get used to for me to say the least. However, after some time, I remember something clicking and the logic I would use to solve the certain problems came to mind. It was through this class I found that I was very interested in programming which inspired me to switch my major to being Computer Science. It was ICS 111 where I first learned Java.
When I was faced with a new programming language, I was nervous that I would either forget some of my C knowledge or get confused between the two. However, the transition between C and Java was not as tough as I thought it would be. The syntax was very similar to that of C when writing if-statements, for-loops, while-loop, etc. The only thing that caught me off guard was the object orienting portion of the language. Making classes and objects was a very foreign idea to me, yet I really enjoyed all the freedom and creativity it gave me to create different types of objects. Now presently in ICS 314 through freeCodeCamp, we got familiar with the syntax of JavaScript. Through my previous knowledge of C and Java, learning JavaScript was not too hard. The syntax of Java and JavaScript was very similar, however from the ES6 exercises I learned about the different features being, let, const, arrow functions, and promises. I especially thought the arrow functions were very interesting since you could condense the code to write concise anonymous functions.
I think JavaScript would be a good programming language from a software engineering perspective. JavaScript is a scripting language that can make web pages and therefore be used in web development which is also a big part of software engineering. I don’t think that JavaScript is the only language you should know in the software engineering field, but I do think that it will be very helpful alongside other languages to know in this field.
In my ICS 314 course we have done some timed practice coding problems, to improve our efficiency and proficiency at programming. I was very concerned at first, since being timed gives me more stress, but I think it will definitely help me to not only be more confident in my coding skills but also to get better at problem solving under pressure. I find all the practices of athletic software engineering very essential to help me prepare for interviews and real-life situations. Even though it was tense, I do appreciate this type of learning since it constantly pushes me to exceed my limits and rapidly learn. I already can tell that the athletic software engineering practices have helped me to think of a solution quickly and implement it in a more cost-effective way.