Blog, my real thoughts

I've just received the peer appraisals. Normally I wouldn't read stuff like that. I mean, way I see it, judging people is.. not very nice. You wouldn't know what the heck is going on in some one else's life unless you've walked in their shoes. But what prof mentioned is also right, the most important thing we should learn about is ourselves and this is the best opportunity to do so.

Actually, a big part of it was because I was afraid of what would be in there. I mean, I do have a vague idea of my weaknesses, and having someone else throw it at your face is not something I exactly look forward to. Well after reading them, I was really blown away. I definitely learnt alot from there. Thank you all that wrote in it, I'll definitely make an effort to work on the points I was lacking. As for the good points, I "tried" not to read it but something really interesting caught my eye and I couldn't escape it. That little part really did brighten up my day. Thank you (whomever) very much for that! Even though you prolly didn't mean it lol

This past week finally concluded our mobile app. I'm really excited about this and I totally enjoyed every moment of it. I would like to think that this app was really quite nicely done, and I'd really like to thank my team members from the bottom of my heart. Qing Wei came up with a prototype even before our second meeting and that really got us fired up. I used to think, you can't be an engineer and a designer at the same time. Not that well at least. Shaohuan definitely proved me wrong there. Lastly, biggest thanks to Leon. This guy is simply the unix god. I learnt so much from this guy.

At some point, I got really disappointed with this course. I thought this course would have lectures covering technical stuff, with tutorials each week to help pick up a skill. So at some point I got really bored and foul. I thought it was a mistake to have enrolled. Well, turns out I did make a mistake - I thought I wouldn't learn anything but really I am learning so so much. I just didn't expect it, because it wasn't directly from the prof. Learning from peers. There are so many significant advantages. You can argue with peers, win and convince them how wonderful your ideas and methods are (hardly in my case), or lose and be blown away by amazing methods they use, at the same time learning about the weaknesses of your own. It was especially the case for my team, where all four of us were considered programmers. 

This method of learning is definitely my first experience and I must say it is a.m.a.z.I.ng. Can't say I'm enjoying it but it's definitely worthwhile. Also, though it sounds like I'm trying to curry favor, I think only a brilliant person can come up with a brilliant method like such.

So this week's lecture is about the 2 case studies. The first one was on the emphasis of GUI and apparently the first team supposedly did a 'bad' job, and we are supposed to criticize it. How 'kind'. I must say that I really admire the two people that presented. Chin Su Yuen and Kent Nguyen (it rhymes). Standing in front of public audience and opening themselves to criticism like that. I know I wouldn't be able to do that for sure. I don't like people rubbing in my sensitive patches but that's just me. I personally think that the GUI was not that bad?! Okay what..! My BTDT seems to pale in comparison.. Oops.
Then again I was never the designer type. All the while, I was looking more at the implementation and that is really really well done IMO. It really pains me when they said they decided to reduce from 20 over features to just 4 simple features, just to make it more 'design fit'. If I were a programmer on that team, I would be really heart broken. And the fact they could redo the app in 24 hours shows how amazing the developer team is. IMHO, design is something really objective. If too much stuff and features means bad, then what about IVLE? (I'm not saying IVLE was done badly)

Case study two. A business guy for a leader is something that I definitely won't agree on, even if I am the only programmer. It takes more than just talk and business sense to be a leader.  There's a reason why 2LT needs to go through 9months of hellish training to get commissioned. It's for a very good reason. And if a business guy leader were to come and tell me hey why didn't you get this or that done, I'd be really pissed lol. When something doesn't get done, help them, or if you can't, don't make it worse. That's the policy I follow.
Always solve the problem at hand first, then worry about other stuff later. One of the phrase I felt strongly against was where it said "serene and I were so....., the programmers just couldn't deliver" - or something like that. If I were that programmer and if I had been working my ass off to receive something like that, I would pop. The person who wrote that just showed me how selfish a person he is. Wow.

Well I feel that I'm getting more agitated on that topic so i'm gonna switch. My macs acting up again, damn it's only 3 months old. Argh.
There were some good points too I picked from the presentation. Team first or idea first? I hadn't ever thought that deep into that, but it's interesting. How it works both ways. But for me it's pretty much team first. It's like prof said, like marriage. Ideas can be developed much easier than bonds IMO.