Week 4 in our Online Software Engineering class we were instructed to build our own CLI from start to finish in one week. There were no labs or any specific goals of the day. We were also not able to use our AAQ. This was our chance to show everything we had learned from these past 3 weeks. I loved this project from day one, but I was more nervous than anything. I didn’t know if I would remember all the information from the labs. Fortunately, as soon as I found the API I was able to keep going non-stop. I was constantly going back to our previous lessons re- reading and analyzing and putting it into practice in my environment. Which was amazing in it self since I realized I was understanding the lessons from before better now that I had to use it on my own. I ran into some hiccups but I was able to code my way around it. I had a running CLI. But it was not pretty, not DRY and didn't have the “invalid input” in place.
Now the real struggle began. I am so inexperienced on refactoring. I read articles and watched videos but its a matter on knowing the correct methods to make your code easier to read and to avoid repetition. With A LOT of trial and error, frustration, patience, and help from my classmates as well as my cohort leads I was able to refactor my code and have the “invalid input” work. It really is a matter of trying everything you can and if you don’t find the answer, realizing it’s time to ask for help. With a little push in the right direction you can go a long way!
Nothing is more beautiful than seeing your work function the way its suppose to. I honestly kept running the program over and over to admire its beauty. I learned so much this week because everything from the previous 3 weeks started to click! I know I will have more information to learn and I will also struggle but at least I know there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.
