#Summarize the project and what problem it was solving I created three applications this semester that solved 3 distinct problems.
Project One: Chada Tech needed a clock that both international and local clients could read that is compliant with ISO 8601 standards.
Project Two: AirGead is a bank interested in reaching out to the local youth. They want you to code a program that allows for assessing the results of an investment with compounding interest. This Application should allow comparing and contrasting an initial investment with the ability to change a Monthly Deposit Amount, Annual Interest and number of years.
Project Three: A grocery store called Corner Grocer needs an application to analyze their .txt records of purchases. The program is to read out the .txt file of purchases, display the counts of total purchases, in addition to allowing searching up individual items and displaying a text histogram of those item purchases. The main program needs to be in C++ with functions written in Python that communicate with the data.
#What did you do particularly well
I paid great attention to the specific asks and thought about the program design from the enduser perspective. While I fulfilled the assignment requirements I also paid thought to what future designs and programming would look like. These programs are the starting points of a full-fledged solution for a business. Project Two could become a program that implements a class and sub-classes of financial scenarios for a student to experiment with, the initial program only experiments with compounding interest. Project Three could become an entire Sales analysis suite that upgrades the .txt files to a database storage, with extensive analysis and possible machine learning using Python.
#Did you find writing any parts of these projects challenging and how did you overcome it? What tools and/or resources are you adding to your support network?
I did find a great deal of these projects challenging in various degrees. Learning C++ is not an easy task, but I did enjoy the triumphs that came with overcoming those challenges. Pointers were particularly difficult to grasp. I overcame these issues by reviewing the material ad-nauseum and googling the material extensively.
I bought a few books to continue teaching myself outside of this class and grow as a programmer. The beauty of any learning endeavor is learning what you do not know, and being given the tools to educate yourself.
#What skills for this project will be particularly transferable to other projects and/or course work?
The skills of object-oriented programming will always aid me in my continued growth as a developer and analyst. I feel C++ has a role in my future development of programs. The execution speed and understanding of programming that comes from knowing C++ is a great benefit.