Essays

3 Topics, 1 Class, 4 Takeaways: A reflection on software engineering

29 May 2024

After the dust has settled… The writing of this essay marks the end of one of the most involved courses I have taken so far in computer science: ICS 314, Software Engineering. It feels like just yesterday that we were...

Software Engineering Configuration Management Functional Programming Software Ethics

cAn I help you? On The Usefulness of Modern AI

30 Apr 2024

I. Introduction In the past half-decade, AI has gone through a massive revolution in both capability and perception by the public. This is thanks to both the culmination of years of research in the field and the increasing proliferation of...

Artificial Intelligence Software Engineering ChatGPT

Cooking Up Delicious Software (through Design Patterns)!

24 Apr 2024

A Restaurant Order without Order Suppose you went into a restaurant and immediately after walking through the entrance, it was chaos. No waiters in sight, customers in the kitchen interfering with the work of the cooks, and the cooks unable...

Design Patterns Software Engineering

Ease of Beauty: The troubles of UI frameworks

22 Feb 2024

The Chase of Beauty The art of making a website is a nascent one, having only really begun on the very trailing edge of the last century. Yet, there has been much evolution since then. Long gone are the static...

Web Development HTML/CSS Bootstrap

Standard, yet Stylish Code!

08 Feb 2024

Enforcing a Style of Code “Pretty” is a word I rarely use when I am looking at code. Particularly when looking at other people’s code, it often starts out as a mess of letters and symbols that only resolves into...

Software Engineering Programming Coding Standards

How Do I Ask?: An overview of smart questions

25 Jan 2024

The Problem of Questions An experience that is far too common in classrooms today is that of the vacuum-like silence that immediately fills the space after the teacher says “Any questions?” I have been on both ends of this, and...

Smart questions Online forums Stack Overflow

Learning the Art of Developing Experiences

18 Jan 2024

Born an artist… or perhaps a programmer? Growing up, I was surrounded by artists. Paintings, drawings, photos covered the walls of my house, with credit attributed to “Bercasio.” Everyone in my family has a distinct skill in art, whether it...

Art/Design Software Engineering Game Development Computer Graphics

My First Few Sips of Java(Script)

16 Jan 2024

My first sip of JavaScript was, to say the least, not the greatest first impression to have. Long before I took my first step on Manoa, my first introduction to JavaScript was in a middle school technology class, during the...

JavaScript Software Engineering