Mobile App - DONE!

Third assignment is down (check http://coffee.yrmichael.com/!) 

Reflections for the assignment:

I didn't really do any coding this time round (which is embarrassing) but I think because of this, I have a better understanding of... things. I think I like to work with a clear idea of how this application is going to be, but this time round, I didn't manage to have a clear picture of the app at all. In fact, I had no idea what the full feature list was going to be, till Div coded it. >.> (On his defense, I think he didn't want to promise anything until he was going to deliver it.)

In any case, it's also a matter of style? Me and Yujing are the type that will check every single detail with each other when coding but I don't think Div and Michael are the type to do so. So I think I was a bit annoying to them at first, when I gchatted them very often. I think it's really hard to adjust my mode of operation (or modus operandi) so in the end, I gchatted with people outside my group. A lot.

Actually, there's a whole timeline of events that led to me giving up on coding, but I think it was Wednesday that triggered it. At 4am, Div and Michael decided to give up our original (complicated) plan and build something much simpler, and by the time Michael showed me the stuff at 11am, I figured out two things:

1) I won't be able to help much under such a short time and,

2) Div and Michael are incredibly fast at coding, and they understand each other very well. 

The second point is important. Also, I really, really trust Div and Michael to come up with a working product...

So I did the report. There were a few questions that I didn't really know how to answer, but at that time, I didn't want to ask questions and disturb the two coders, so it became more of a "Div, read this and see whether it's okay" thing, which seems to work better. After a while, report-writing was quite fun. I was with a friend while writing, and we'll ask and answer each other's questions when writing our reports. ("Does this sentence sound okay?". "HMMM..." etc.) I also had to look around and understand about microblogging (my friend taught me this one!) as well as authentication schemes (had to research a lot for this one!) In a way, I ended up learning a lot via research. 

In any case, my project group-mates were good! We got work done, and a pretty solid product. It's really usable and neat on the mobile phone, and I think my group-mates really put a lot of thought into the usability of the product.

On the other hand, this isn't what I consider an ideal group to work in, mainly because I'm not pulling my own weight. Also, Div is a Baa Baa Black Sheep (BBBS). I think while I have learnt some technical stuff, I learnt a lot more about group dynamics, and why Prof has always considered our CS3217 group to be really good. Also, I feel that there was quite a bit of miscommunication sometimes. Mmm, I also probably need to level up my coding skills quite a bit.

Time to start speeding up for final project in any case! Whee~!