CST 438 Week 1 Learning Journal

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 Software Engineering Course Expectations

Coming into the Software Engineering course, I expected to learn how to develop software and practice the design process. This was to be accomplished through both individual labs and a group project. 

After completing the first week, I realized that there is a lot more to software engineering than just programming. Programming is a more individualized aspect of software engineering that involves the coding component. Software engineering is a collaborative effort that involves programming, as well as other planning and design concepts. There are several factors that a team must consider for software to be sustainable and maintainable. 

To create sustainable software, a team must consider time, scale, and trade-offs throughout the development process. Time must be considered in terms of factors such as the software's lifespan and the deadline for delivering specific components of the software.  Scalability involves considering both human and resource costs, as well as how the software will handle growth. Trade-offs involve deciding what is important at the cost of something that is not as important. 

Although our class project may be short-lived, it is essential to understand the impact that these three aspects of the software development process have on the software being developed in a real-life scenario. 

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