Giving Pearls to Pigs
28 Apr 2022Design Patterns
After using design patterns in web application building this semester, I was able to gain a much better understanding especially of how developing in an open software environment is like. We were introduced to using many different design patterns Observer pattern being one of the main ones. To give my honest thoughts, I think that this is whats called giving pearls to a pig. In Japan this a popular saying which denotes that even if you give pearls to a pig, it will not understand its value. The model-view-controller is an innovative design pattern that capitalizes on the common issues that are faced when creating a user interface, splitting the task into three components greatly reducing the hassle for the developer. There must have been years of trial and error followed by improvements by many software engineers around the world that has lead to a refined design pattern like the MVC. In other words, we are years and years of experience away from understanding truly how design patterns make the work of a software engineer much simpler and organized. Now that we live in an age where having a smartphone is a requirement, I’m glad I was one of last generations that got to experience using the not-so-smart phones. The first phone that I had was a casio flip phone and writing texts using a number pad was not so easy, I cannot imagine having to have to press a button three times to enter the letter “c”. But all of this builds up for the moment I get my hands on a smartphone for the first time and experience how fast and easier everything is.
flip
Lifesavor of Groupwork
Although I said what I said, there are many ways design patterns have helped me in my web application building, especially after experiencing groupwork. For our final project “Walking with Pele”, we are heavily reliant on the Observer design pattern, the publisher/subscriber construct to be concise. Our appliction has a spots collection that contains all of the information regarding the activities/events that our application will dealing with. By having a publisher and subscriber, we are able to dictate the info that certain users and pages will be able to access. Additionally, in a more broad point of view, I noticed how having a design pattern makes group work significantly more efficient. It is normal for a group members to have a different ideas but by having a set structure to work with, we were always facing the same direction. It also should have gave us more time to discuss other importent aspects and to work on the code so the fact that we’re running a little late and me being worried if we can finish in time must be just a dream.