Designing Success

If I had to summarize my experience with most of the professors in my college career, it would be with the phrase: “I know you think it’s unnecessary, but one day design will save your life”. It’s funny because, for most of the 8 semesters I have been at this school, most of the students (including me) have thought about the longsome and “boring” job that is the process of establishing high-level decisions and general schematics for software projects. I now think that this activity is vital and can save a lot of time, effort and tears. The bad news, it’s one of those things that I had to live in order to learn. Last semester, I was working on one of the famous i-semesters. Our task was to build a webpage that allowed registered users to see content according to their preferences and current skill level. When we started working and a teacher asked us to make several diagrams and split all of the responsibilities into modules, we all took it as another homework that we just “comp...

What I found most interesting about the documentary on NASA and the Apollo Navigation Computer is its similarity with many modern software projects. I specially mean modules or complete systems that are vital to a product or company that are not thought carefully, eventually creating a “technical debt” that paid for the rest of the project. This can be considered normal within the software industry now (unfortunately), whether it’s with a small team or an army of programmers in big company. I, however, think that the factors that caused that in the NASA project were a product of their time. Up until that point, no one had seemed to care about the quality of the software being written. The documentary implies that it was just an afterthought, even programs that would make the Lunar Lander function properly. Most of the attention was given to the physical components, such as transistors. I believe that, because that technology was like a new “toy” from a relatively new area of in...

Hello, is it me you are looking for? I am Julio, however, most of my friends call me Julay or Jalay. Yes, you may call me like the month. I am 22 years old and I will be 23 by March 1st of this year. Ever since I was little I have liked videogames. They have become an important part of my life and they have, in part, shaped me to be the person I am today. Proof of that is my career choice, I started studying Engineering in Computer Science in 2015 to make videogames. While it is still my preferred choice for my future projects, I have also discovered many other interesting areas, such as networks and mobile apps. One thing that I have found common among all of these different specializations is the need to design. Many people see it as an optional step or as an activity that is made at the same time as you code, however, I have found that a good design can save plenty of time and, overall, results in better finished products. Design, for me, is a way to validate the ideas and objec...