- A Volunteer Time-Tracking Web App with a restful API built with a Vue front-end and Node back-end with a mySQL database.
My role in this project was somewhat of a lead developer where I chose our frameworks, and did the legwork for learning how to use them. That way, I could distill information to my teammates via pair programming sessions. I enjoyed tackling things that had the most challenge and after showing them the front-to-back ropes via the Login page, and settings page, I moved onwards to the Calendar. This is a custom-built calendar which fit the SCRUM stories needed by the client. I had help from a teammate who oversaw the MySQL database to create the queries and functions necessary to maintain the REST API we had.
The goal of this project was to create a replacement for a manual method of volunteer time-tracking for a public school here in Edmonton. Each parent has a varying amount of technological experience, so we wanted to create something with a very intuitive. Page refreshes are something of a pet-peeve of mine, so I opted for a very reactive experience. We're one of the top groups in the class with only 2 groups rivaling our progress. https://github.com/reallynewbie/w18brown
- A JavaFX Application which pulls a CSV from the NobelPrize API and loads it into a Java object to allow a user to search through it.
My role in this project was to conceptualize the UI and build it. My personal goal was to create a web-like experience with a persistent search bar and to have as few pop-ups as possible. Something extra that I decided to throw myself at was to make the application perform the search asynchronously as having the program freeze while searching was unacceptable for me.
https://github.com/reallynewbie/NobelDatabase
- Worked on a tab in a WinForms C# application while working at Stantec.
I had involved myself with a helper application that is used at Stantec to help Call Center Employees. After studying the source code, I improved the performance of this tab by optimizing the queries it used to search. I also suggested to the sole developer how we can make the tab more efficient. This also exposed me to the SharePoint API and creating CAMLQueries.
- Google Apps - I enjoy their Material Design philosophy which brings consistency to all their apps. By having a sort of modernism and cleanness to their applications, it's nice to be able to instantly recognize what is intuitively clickable and guess what it does.
- Ars Technica - Just a simple feature of theirs is worth mentioning as it was something they had "recently" implemented that I didn't know I wanted. In multiple-page articles, their page detects when you've reached the end of the page and dynamically loads the next page. To have something so simple change my expectations of websites was very nice. Ex. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/are-external-gpus-for-macs-viable-in-macos-10-13-4-we-tested-to-find-out/
- Evolution of twitch.tv's learning algorithms - They've made some questionable UI choices (in my opinion, their UI is very cluttered), however they've made a lot of steps forward in suggesting content a user may be interested in.
I'd like to improve my eye for creating visually effective and intuitive UIs. I think knowing the reasoning some people take for certain designs would be very effective. Also, improving my own skill level with CSS would be great. After my stint of working with Vuetify, I've realized that I have a lot to learn about how to custom make CSS.