Blog Activity: Is Design Dead?

When I begin my career, I started to check different areas of the Degree, like Databases, Networking, Operating Systems, Project Management and Programming Languages. What I'm trying to say is that the main objective here is not to only learn one thing or focus on a specific area, in this case when there is a project for a company or even for the creation of something new there has been an issue that normally makes that the projects take more time, resources or even fails or don't reach the expectations,

In this case when it's a Software project there is a lot of people behind it, but nowadays companies try to create more and more ASAP not only because of the competition that exists, but to save money and avoid any problem with it.

A working team for these cases opt for the process and rules that are in 2 ways, the classic methods and the agile method. As the names for each one tells advantages and disadvantages it’s important to identify when to use each of the programming method, sometimes using a traditional instead of an agile method takes more benefits and excellent result or vice versa with the agile method, the team needs to decide and check which one is the one that will not affect the gap between the main objective and what is being develop.

Now, another thing that everyone should keep while working on a project is to keep things simple, I think that the programmer or even the engineer logic and thoughts keep the person too far from the simplicity, that does not mean that is not correct, but sometimes the answer is easier that the story that a person could create on the head. In programming is the same, we create stuff looking for different scenarios, with details and precision but, at the same time we complicate the things looking more than the present and possible future scenarios that could happen.

It's important also to think that every person on a project (programmer, designer, tester or even another department from the company) is important and the team needs to be as one, only choosing the way to create the project (UML, Kanban, XP, SCRUM, Cascade, etc.) is what decides the failure or success from the project it needs to have the right option the project requires to save money, develop a good product and the most important one so every person on the team could work properly.

With this I can answer that Designing and Programming are evolving not on a way that only a person could be specialized on only one knowledge area, but needs guidance from each one for a successful project.

And remember, keep the code simple so any other person could understand, also you don't get confused with your own code!

Blog Activity: Who Needs an Architect?

Normally, when we hear the word Architect, for a non-IT career related we remember those persons that creates the main structure of a building or a construction. The one's that creates a model from a house, etc.

For us, programmers or in other words for IT related, the term architect and architecture gets a different meaning, especially on the part that one person who has experience is considered an architect (also, for me the term of architect is a person who has already more than 5 - 10 years on his work area, considering it for a job vacancy) and a person who can get the right authority for the development of a project.

The architect in other words is considered a very important person so a project or software could have a great amount of success. Now, this term is for the people who manage the project to have the same channel and knowledge from all the employees involved on the work, but remember that is only for the development part, because there is a person who get all the project control and that one is the project manager.

What I’m trying to say is that there are too many people who works on the development of a software, Q/A, developers, testers and other areas that conform a team. The architect is considered an important, a very important person for the project, not only for being the one with more knowledge from the other, but also to analyze the best options the team has for development, he already saw further than the team and knows where to lead the group. 

I'm still looking for options for a specific role on my career, the ones that I look interesting is network architect or even software architect, this does not mean that I won't pass the first stages from my career to become an architect, a person with experience but is a good objective to set in mind to success.

Now, according to the reading this could answer one of the most important questions, is it necessary an architect? My answer and opinion is yes, experience and knowledge are 2 important tools to have that sightseeing that some expert needs, not only to have a good development but also to consider a person with more experience inside the project, could help to get the required success for the team and the process.

Blog Activity: Software Architecture

There is a point of view that I previously had when I entered the degree, in that idea I was thinking:

 - "Well, I don't know how to program correctly, could it affect me when I enter the career?"

After making that statement I have a conclusion for that question from years ago, and the answer is yes, but at the same time no.

Why both? Well, that's simple, first, because no one born with programming knowledge/skills and second, time passes and meanwhile that time passes I'm learning new stuff to make a better performance and avoid newcomer errors.

Honestly, through the career I've been fighting to learn programming languages in a way that I could have a good technique and apply it in every language (and well also because I'm the only person from my family that I'm interested on technology and computing, so I'm going to be the first Engineer on Computing Science from my family, Hooray!), but thanks to the book that I recently discovered thanks to this subject, I checked that there is no a base strategy to handle all in one, instead you can learn different ways to understand and work with different programming languages, but that does not mean that there is a method to create code without passing through different stages.

There are things on the book that got my attention, specially this term "Defensive Language", normally on school you create programs just to finish and get the assignment complete, but we don't take some minutes to reflex or think about important steps that would make a better way to create a program, this kind of methods can save us from large hours in front the PC screen and get frustrated because we only think in accomplish the homework.

I consider that the tips from the book are a good advice to follow from now on not only for the benefit of one, but to do things correctly. Like I said, I've always struggled with the way to solve a problem, today I learned that we create correct code (or just that works), but no good code, that needs to get improvements and to be followed, it helps one to get the idea behind the way we create code and that we don't look more than the result, we need to check different scenarios, possibilities, options and check from scratch the code that we can create so the program works correctly since the beginning and just focus in the good code.

Blog entry: Moon Machines

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - John F. Kennedy (1962).

Those were the words for the big challenge that was going to begin for the United States, people was going to reach the moon and with they would specially improve on technology to begin a new era on humankind, this big step is an incredible way to demonstrate what does inspiration and effort could generate. 

In this blog entry, the next comments are created as critic to give a point of view of what I think from this documentary.

The technology always and will be an aspect of our lives that are in constant change or evolves with humankind, when the Apollo mission was issued by the US, at the beginning was considered as a suicide mission or even impossible, on that moment was viewed that way not because they were not having the technology to begin with the objective immediately, but the main reason was that no one or nobody arrived to the moon.

Their mission was not easy, they spend years and an exhaustive number of attempts to reach the final objective, some of them were reached by coincidence others they were having the right explanation to have reached to the method or mechanic to recreate the same phenomenon.

As an example, there is one thing that I’m still curious, the issue that the computer got once the Apollo crew arrived to the moon (the system overload at the arrival of the moon), the idea here is that since everything was already tested and created with the right care about the equipment, there were still times that existed a chance of failure during the expedition (in this case that did not happened). The mission could be a complete failure if the computer remained the same way, and expecting from the USD government they would try it again until they could get their objective.

The other point of view was the creations from a group of talented people from the MIT (one I would recognize and thanks to this person the progress on the creations of new technology would not be the same) like Margaret Hamilton, they were processes and specially methods that provided the right information and calculations to avoid any failure.

With this we can see that there are a lot of changes in this world since this big impact in the story of mankind, I’m sure that on the next years the humanity will get far away and could solve mysteries that are still unknown for mankind.

I'm leaving the video from this interesting event, one of the achievements that changed history and make a big evolution in the world.

About myself and expectations from this course.

Hi Everybody!

My name is Allan Ramírez, I'm 24 years old (soon 25 on January 25, already feeling old) and right now I'm studying the career in computing systems. At this moment I'm on the 8th semester of the course.

Expectations from the course


I'm excited to see what new things I can learn from this course, honestly I never heard with detail about the content of the course, this is the first time I'm going to use a programming language like Ruby, but I had already got good references of the language, specially that is pretty fun and a good challenge to learn more and more.

So, i'm expecting a lot of things to learn and also to dominate on this new programming language to extend my knowledge and library.

Hobbies and personal interests


Well, some of my hobbies and way to pass a good time is to listen to music (being specific Rock, Classic Rock, Grunge, Metal and also some genres as Blues and Classic music). Normally I hear artist like:

• Metallica
• Judas Priest
• Pearl Jam
• AC/DC
• Lang Lang (Piano Music)

Soundtracks are another good option for me, so my favorite composers are:

• Greg Edmonson
• Hans Zimmer
• John Williams

Also, I like to play videogames that have action and a pretty good story like:

• Uncharted
• Metal Gear Solid
• Mass Effect
• Pokémon

and many more!

My passion for cars is one of the things that would never change for nothing. Formula 1 is a proof for this pleasure, I already assisted to the 3 Grand Prixes that are on the contract with the country and I'm going for the 4th time and many more.

Books, music, movies, TV programs that you have recently enjoyed.

Recently I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi and totally enjoyed it, I have some mixed feelings for the changes that made to the saga, but some others are for good, sometimes we need to give it a try, specially because we are already used to the legends version instead of this new canon. Also, the story needs to have a new twist and I hope that the next movie is going to solve a lot of questions that we have at the moment.

Also, I rewatched Rogue One, even as a side story is a good movie that I like so much because of the Scariff incursion. I like to recreate it on Star Wars Battlefront so I play it a lot recently,

For TV series I haven't watched one recently, but I want to rewatch some anime that I really enjoy, I don't have an specific one, but there is an extense list because every anime has a short length.

About music i'm still waiting to assist a concert, the one that I was waiting with emotion was Linkin Park, but due the situation that happened with the singer Chester the fate of the group is still unknown.

Well, I think that's all at the moment, to the persons visiting this blog I wish you a nice year and always good vibes.