CS 373 Spring 2020: Abhi Velaga

What did you do this past week?

I started building the search functionality in the front end this week. I ended up using a library to get a nice search bar component and embedded that on our splash page and the list pages.

What’s in your way?

Nothing is blocking me but I have some learning ahead in order to figure out how to build drop down menus and a whole UI for sorting in filtering with components such as sliders and checkboxes.

What will you do next week?

This next week is focused on building the front end with functionality for searching, filtering, and sorting. This not only requires a lot of learning and time to build it, but coordination with the backend developers to figure out how the endpoints will work.

What was your experience of SQL? (this question will vary, week to week)

I’ve never used it before but was familiar with how it works and the benefit it provides. I was a little surprised to learn that there’s so many types of joins for such specific uses but it’s making me interested in learning some SQL and finding ways that I can use it in my projects.

What was your experience of the ethics material? (this question will vary, week to week)

The topic of policy vacuums is something very interesting that I’ve started to notice on my own in the past few years. I especially realized this when Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of congress about regulation of the internet and social networks that policies will never stay ahead of innovation but instead will always be playing catch up.

What made you happy this week?

I’ve been learning how to use CSS transitions and animations and have been using them to build a creative portfolio website for myself. I really enjoying finding intersections between creativity/art and computer science and this is another project that fulfills that well.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

Anytime I have a task to build a react component my first instinct has been to design and build it but I’ve realized that I should make use of libraries and scour npmjs.com first for components that may fulfill my use and save myself time.