Essays

Solving Problems With Apps

10 Sep 2025

Solving Problems With Apps Why I Love Software Engineering Software engineering is exciting because it’s all about solving problems. Every bug, every feature request, every half-formed idea is really just another puzzle waiting for a solution. For me, one of...

Software Engineering

Asking Real Smart Questions

10 Sep 2025

Asking Real Smart Questions Why Smart Questions Matter In software engineering, knowing what to ask is often just as important as knowing how to code. Eric Raymond’s classic essay, How to Ask Questions the Smart Way, argues that the way...

Coding TypeScript

Power in Coding

10 Sep 2025

Typescript: Power in Coding My Background Before TypeScript I came into this module with about a year of computer engineering under my belt. In that time, I learned JavaScript, C, and C++. Each language had its own quirks: C felt...

Coding TypeScript

Beyond the Browser: Reflections on Software Engineering Fundamentals

16 Dec 2025

As ICS 314 draws to a close, I’ve built web applications, debugged JavaScript, and deployed to GitHub Pages. But beneath the HTML and CSS lies a foundation of software engineering principles that extend far beyond web development. This class wasn’t...

Software Engineering ICS 314 Reflection

Effort Estimation: The Stopwatch That Saved My Schedule

12 Dec 2025

In the world of software development, time is both your most valuable resource and your biggest enemy. You think you can knock out a feature in an hour, only to find yourself debugging at 3 AM. That’s where effort estimation...

Agile Project Management Effort Estimation ICS 314

AI in ICS 314: From Prompt Engineering to Efficient Coding

12 Dec 2025

Artificial Intelligence has become an integral part of modern software engineering education, transforming how students learn and apply concepts. In ICS 314, AI tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, and others have bridged gaps in understanding, accelerated coding, and introduced new...

AI ICS 314 Software Engineering

Design Patterns: The blueprints we reuse to build better software

05 Dec 2025

When you walk into a bookstore, the shelves are organized the same way regardless of which store you visit. Fiction on one side, non-fiction on another, checkout near the exit. You don’t have to ask where things are—the pattern is...

Design Patterns Software Engineering ICS 314

Final Project Idea: Tithr

04 Nov 2025

🌿 Tithr: A Faith-Based Financial Budgeting App for UH Students Overview The Problem Many UH Mānoa students struggle to manage their finances wisely—balancing tuition, part-time work, rent, and social life often leads to anxiety about money. For Christian students, financial...

Software Engineering Nextjs Faith-Based App Financial Planning

Frameworks, not crutches: what Bootstrap 5 really buys you

08 Oct 2025

Designing a clean, responsive interface with just raw HTML and CSS is possible—but it’s rarely efficient. UI frameworks like Bootstrap 5 and Semantic UI trade some learning curve for speed, consistency, and accessibility out of the box. In ICS 314,...

UI Bootstrap 5 Semantic UI ICS 314

Friction in Foundation

23 Sep 2025

If code is a building, then coding standards are the foundation. Without a foundation, a building might stand for a little while, but it will collapse once people start adding weight to it. Software projects work the same way. The...

Coding ESLint Standards