JavaScript and ICS 314... Are They Worth the Hype?
17 Jan 2024
Is JavaScript worth the hype?
This isn’t my first time using JavaScript. In high school, I was lucky enough to take an Intro to Programming course in highschool using code.org to program little apps and games with JavaScript. However, it’s been a long time since then, so it’s been refreshing to get back into it after using languages like C and Java. After getting back into it, I realized it is a little more intuitive than other languages like C and Java (I haven’t used Python yet). Things like creating a variable or a function are so much easier because the user doesn’t have to worry about the type as much! It almost feels… wrong! But JavaScript feels a lot more intuitive to me personally (it could be since it was one of the first languages that I learned). Even the things that I didn’t know seemed like they flowed easily and made sense. I especially like the “new” declaration types of ES6: const and let. I like that it keeps the variables easy to declare (not isolated by types like string and char), but gives them more security when they can be accessed and changed. Because it is intuitive yet has a lot of flexible features, I think that is what would make this a great language for software engineering. So overall, yes, I think JS is worth the hype!
Is ICS 314 and the athletic software engineering course style worth the hype?
Now for the athletic software engineering approach… my personal opinion is that I don’t really like that there is homework due every night for the course. It makes it difficult when there are certain obligations for certain days (an example is last weekend was a holiday weekend, and not only did I get stuck at the airport due to runway repairs, but I had a family wedding event to attend). Don’t get me wrong, these problems can be avoided by working ahead, but with other classes and responsibilities to attend to, the schedule doesn’t feel as flexible. But the great thing about having assignments due every night is that they force you to sit down and do the work at a steady pace. No one likes spending the whole day working on assignments. There are certainly gives and takes with the style, but it could be worse. I think it will work for me once I get my life together. From the perspective of an exchange student, I would not get this experience at my home university, so it gives my skill set more diversity (which I am grateful for a new challenge). Am I a fan of it right now? I am not exactly sure. But I am hopeful that this will be a great stepping stone for the future.