A recap of what I expected from this module:
1. Pain
2. Great People
3. Satisfaction
To look back now, I'd say I had set very modest goals. They were things which I quite expected to achieve after knowing what CS3216 has to offer so I think I should list down what I learned apart from the above...
It really almost always boils down to choices and everyone gets their set of choices whether they realize it or not.
Context
I was concurrently doing another module, CS2103 SE with this module and had taken on a team of not so imba coders to lead them to a great product..(lol)..why do something suicidal like this?
Well, a cool article on CS said, "try to be the imba programmer in a team and the ~imba programmer in a team once in your lifetime" which I felt would be a good learning experience. Since js and web programming are far from my turf, the latter was quite aptly fulfilled here so I thought it would be cool to tick this milestone completely off my list.
In the meantime, CS3216 was quite nice the first two assignments..
Status Time Capsule
Amazing people where 4 coders made it something like a party..it was quite convenient to do work without having to push people or have any issues getting things done..workflow rocked and we made a cool product which got sorta killed by timeline.. (I guess...)
Kontitude - Conference with Attitude
Another team with not so much fuss..No formal leadership required (and Alan is awesome) so its not difficult to do your shit, get your job done and be happy and come out with something cool...
MysteryStory.me
"Nearing combustion..gonna explode..wth is going on.."
Why did this happen?
Well, I can clearly see the drastic difference between what happened in the first two assignments and here..
For the first two, the team was strong, powerful and had well defined goals and objectives..
For the final project, things got ugly..we did not have strong leadership in any sphere..vision was missing....also if our manpower could have been more in the non-coding aspects, we could have achieved more..
We did manage to buck up and make it though....our product is cool if you see it on an iPhone or Android. The problem with it is that on an iPad it looks like there is nothing much to do and it doesn't jump out and impress but all the testing we did with the phone got a great response...
And honestly, I think I learned the most on the final project than on the other two assignments..though I started CS3216 as someone who was roughly alien to js compared to the stalwarts in the class, I did pick it up quite a bit..but most importantly, screwing up things here and there in the final project gave me a learning experience with each failure..
I also realized some of my weaknesses in the final project..I could not be the one carrying the vision for the team or anything similar in the final project even if I wanted to..I was doing a lot for my CS2103 group and that project would literally crumble if I did not iron man it throughout.. it taught me immensely about team management and getting work out of people which I feel is invaluable to learn and will help me in the future..
To be brutally honest to my CS3216 team, no one ended up carrying the vision..some tried but clearly inexperience was their master..you have to realize it is a full-time job and with such a multi-disciplinary team, one has to be very capable (or competent) to be able to make it all work...
The other thing I learnt was that you cannot make everyone happy..some people like lists, some people hate it, some people like reading some people don't so you should never gauge your product according to what everyone thinks but should instead concentrate on identifying your target audience and making your product better for them...
To sum up, I think I made it out of CS3216 quite well and though I am not starting my own company soon (maybe ;)) and am not in the midst of an epic take-over deal, I think I've learned my bit from this module..
Maybe things would have panned out differently with a different set of choices..maybe..but more importantly..I don't regret the ones I made..
V
1. Pain
2. Great People
3. Satisfaction
To look back now, I'd say I had set very modest goals. They were things which I quite expected to achieve after knowing what CS3216 has to offer so I think I should list down what I learned apart from the above...
It really almost always boils down to choices and everyone gets their set of choices whether they realize it or not.
Context
I was concurrently doing another module, CS2103 SE with this module and had taken on a team of not so imba coders to lead them to a great product..(lol)..why do something suicidal like this?
Well, a cool article on CS said, "try to be the imba programmer in a team and the ~imba programmer in a team once in your lifetime" which I felt would be a good learning experience. Since js and web programming are far from my turf, the latter was quite aptly fulfilled here so I thought it would be cool to tick this milestone completely off my list.
In the meantime, CS3216 was quite nice the first two assignments..
Status Time Capsule
Amazing people where 4 coders made it something like a party..it was quite convenient to do work without having to push people or have any issues getting things done..workflow rocked and we made a cool product which got sorta killed by timeline.. (I guess...)
Kontitude - Conference with Attitude
Another team with not so much fuss..No formal leadership required (and Alan is awesome) so its not difficult to do your shit, get your job done and be happy and come out with something cool...
MysteryStory.me
"Nearing combustion..gonna explode..wth is going on.."
Why did this happen?
Well, I can clearly see the drastic difference between what happened in the first two assignments and here..
For the first two, the team was strong, powerful and had well defined goals and objectives..
For the final project, things got ugly..we did not have strong leadership in any sphere..vision was missing....also if our manpower could have been more in the non-coding aspects, we could have achieved more..
We did manage to buck up and make it though....our product is cool if you see it on an iPhone or Android. The problem with it is that on an iPad it looks like there is nothing much to do and it doesn't jump out and impress but all the testing we did with the phone got a great response...
And honestly, I think I learned the most on the final project than on the other two assignments..though I started CS3216 as someone who was roughly alien to js compared to the stalwarts in the class, I did pick it up quite a bit..but most importantly, screwing up things here and there in the final project gave me a learning experience with each failure..
I also realized some of my weaknesses in the final project..I could not be the one carrying the vision for the team or anything similar in the final project even if I wanted to..I was doing a lot for my CS2103 group and that project would literally crumble if I did not iron man it throughout.. it taught me immensely about team management and getting work out of people which I feel is invaluable to learn and will help me in the future..
To be brutally honest to my CS3216 team, no one ended up carrying the vision..some tried but clearly inexperience was their master..you have to realize it is a full-time job and with such a multi-disciplinary team, one has to be very capable (or competent) to be able to make it all work...
The other thing I learnt was that you cannot make everyone happy..some people like lists, some people hate it, some people like reading some people don't so you should never gauge your product according to what everyone thinks but should instead concentrate on identifying your target audience and making your product better for them...
To sum up, I think I made it out of CS3216 quite well and though I am not starting my own company soon (maybe ;)) and am not in the midst of an epic take-over deal, I think I've learned my bit from this module..
Maybe things would have panned out differently with a different set of choices..maybe..but more importantly..I don't regret the ones I made..
V
"some people like lists, some people hate it, some people like reading some people don't so you should never gauge your product according to what everyone thinks but should instead concentrate on identifying your target audience and making your product better for them..."
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. Cant create anything hoping to please everyone. but if you can please your target audience, you've got something going on. :)