Why Software Engineering
28 Aug 2016Software Engineering has become a great industry over the past decades and will only continue to grow as our technology continues to break new bounds of possibilities never possible before. It is the magical foundation that allows hardware to function in the ways we want to extend our own capabilities and accomplish a variety of tasks either more efficiently or more exceptionally without human intereference.
The Art of Engineering
If resources were completely free and unlimited in terms of availability and power, engineering wouldn’t be much of an issue. But obviously, idealities like this cannot be reached. Hardware limits such as form factors and energy sources, and software limits such as computing power and available memory will be pereptual bottlenecks. This is where the need for engineering arises. Apart from actual implementation and making things as error-free as possible, the right design and development techniques are needed to reduce the footprint of the final product as much as possible. Taking the smallest amount of resources possible to have your creation function, to give room for more features.
Optimization Doesn’t Seem Like the Most Enjoyable Thing..?
Optimization is indeed one of the main tasks engineers are expected to do, but this is not what got me interested in the field. I was first interested in software when I took part in robotics during 6th grade. It was a LEGO Mindstorms RCX, a programmable brick of where legos could be attached to it.
Building things out of LEGO bricks was definitely fun as a kid back then, but once I saw it become able to move after learning how to program it, it became so much more interesting. Soon I wanted it to be able to do more and move quicker. Thinking of creative ways to see how I could achieve more within my limits, it became more enjoyable once things started working after long hours of work. Optimization became an integrated necessity within the development process that leads to a more enjoyable final product. I soon branched to VEX robotics and then FIRST robotics. I also became exposed to web development and “real programming.”
Skills I Want to Develop
I am currently studying at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for a degree in Computer Engineering. It was a curriculum of where I could obtain the skills needed to use and develop software on my own, while also providing me the skills to work with hardware as well. One of my most notable projects is MicroMouse, of where one designs and builds a robot from scratch and programs it with a microcontroller of their choice, not from a store bought kit.
For now, I want to be able to develop my web programming skills further, since my current knowledge only allows me to develop basic HTML/CSS webpages. I have delved into Javascript a little, but not enough to give me the ability to create dynamic websities suited for commercial usage.