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CST438 Week 6

CST438 Week 6 This week's reading covered computing infrastructure and how large scale systems manage servers, containers, and workloads. The concept that clicked most for me was idempotency, the idea that issuing a request twice produces the same result as issuing it once. It sounds simple but it has real implications for building reliable distributed systems, especially when retries are involved. The section on containers versus VMs also connected directly to work I have already done. Deploying my project on AWS using ECS and Docker made the tradeoffs feel concrete rather than theoretical. Containers win on startup time and footprint, but they are not the right tool for everything, particularly around managing state. The serverless model was interesting too. The engineer just provides the code and the platform handles the rest. It removes a lot of overhead but also takes away control, which is a real tradeoff depending on what you are building.
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CST489 Week 14

What project milestones did you accomplish this week? This week I completed my project. I integrated RAG into my AWS Cert Quiz app, which now includes an AI agent that explains why a selected answer is wrong and a chat feature that lets users ask follow up questions answered by the documents I fed into the RAG pipeline. What is your plan for next week? Next week I plan to deploy the project on AWS and finish whichever certifications I can before the end of the term. What challenges, if any, are you currently facing in project development? Do you need instructor assistance? No challenges at the moment and no instructor assistance needed.
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CST438 Week 5

This week's reading from Software Engineering at Google covered large tests. The main takeaway is that larger tests trade speed and simplicity for fidelity. Unlike unit tests, they test how the system actually behaves in conditions closer to production, which means they catch things unit tests simply cannot. The tradeoff is that they are slower, more expensive to run, and harder to maintain. What stuck with me was that larger tests still use mocks in some cases, and that Google does not rely on full automation scripts for everything. Two key ingredients for large tests to work well are realistic seed data and production data, which makes sense because a test is only as useful as how closely it mirrors real usage.
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CST489 Week 13

What project milestones did you accomplish this week? This week I finished 2 certificates and put in over 40 combined hours into the Google Cybersecurity course prior to that. I am on track to finish the Google Cybersecurity certificate by end of this week. What is your plan for next week? Next week I plan to continue studying for the AWS quiz and keep that momentum going. What challenges, if any, are you currently facing in project development? Do you need instructor assistance? No challenges at the moment and no instructor assistance needed.
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CST489 Week 12

What project milestones did you accomplish this week? This week was lighter on progress. I did not hit any major milestones but I have a couple of days off coming up that I am dedicating fully to the project, around 8 hours per day. I plan to make up for the slower start before the week is out. What is your plan for next week? Next week's plan is still taking shape depending on how much ground I cover during my days off. I will have a clearer picture of where I stand once I get through those sessions. What challenges, if any, are you currently facing in project development? Do you need instructor assistance? No major challenges right now and no instructor assistance needed. The main thing is just carving out the time, which I have lined up.
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CST438 Week 4

This week's reading from Software Engineering at Google was about code reviews. The part that stuck with me most was how Google splits the review across three roles: peer engineer, code base owner, and language readability approver. Each one is looking at the code differently, and that structure makes the whole process more intentional than what I'm used to. What Stood Out The bug fix review point was the most interesting. It's not enough to verify the fix works. The reviewer is also supposed to ask why the existing tests didn't catch the bug in the first place. That's a much higher bar, and a more useful one. Takeaway Reading about the code base owner role, someone asking whether the team can actually maintain this code if the original author leaves, made me realize that question doesn't get asked enough in most places.
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CST489 Week 11

What project milestones did you accomplish this week? Honestly this week was a slower one for the project. I did not make significant progress on any major milestones. Most of my energy this week went toward other coursework and responsibilities outside of this class. I did keep up with the NVIDIA RAG course material but did not push as hard as I wanted to on the project itself. What is your plan for next week? Next week I plan to go full throttle. I want to make up for the slower pace this week and push meaningful progress on the project. I will also continue working through the NVIDIA RAG course and keep studying for my AWS certification. The cloud architecture knowledge from the cert prep has been directly useful for the project so I want to keep that momentum going. What challenges, if any, are you currently facing in project development? Do you need instructor assistance? No major blockers right now. The main challenge is just time management and balancing this project alongs...
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