* [Design Patterns: Blueprints for Cleaner Code](design-patterns)

Essays

Design Patterns

24 Apr 2026

Design Patterns: The Blueprint Behind Bow-lletins Imagine trying to build something like my final project, Bow-lletins, without any structure. At first, it feels manageable. You can throw together pages, connect a database, and get things working. But once features start...

Programming Software Design Next.js Reflection

Final Project Proposal

31 Mar 2026

Overview Bow-lletins is a digital bulletin board platform designed for UH Mānoa students and affiliates. It helps students, organizations, clubs, and campus groups discover and share important opportunities such as jobs, internships, study groups, events, and deadlines in one centralized,...

Software Engineering Nextjs

From BlueJ to Bootstrap: Learning Why UI Frameworks Matter

26 Feb 2026

When I first started working with user interfaces, I was not building websites. I was inside BlueJ, writing Java code and experimenting with graphical components for the first time. At that point, I was not thinking about UI frameworks or...

Software Engineering UI Design Learning

“The Art of Asking Smart Questions”

29 Jan 2026

More Than Just Getting It to Run When I first started programming, success meant one thing: did it run without errors? If the output appeared and nothing crashed, I felt done. Over time, though, I realized working code is only...

Questions Answers StackOverflow

Building Software That Lasts Lessons Beyond the Code

21 Jan 2026

Discovering the Bigger Picture When I first started this class I assumed software engineering was mostly about building web apps. I thought we would learn a few frameworks, complete some projects, and call it a day. But very quickly I...

Reflection Software Engineering Essays

Learning to Think in TypeScript

21 Jan 2026

Introduction Before this module I had only a basic understanding of TypeScript and mostly saw it as JavaScript with extra rules. Working through the TypeScript Playground and completing practice WODs for ICS 314 changed that perspective. This module pushed me...

Reflection TypeScript Software Engineering Essays

Reflecting on Coding Standards in ICS 314

11 Aug 2025

Reflecting on Coding Standards in ICS 314 I. Introduction When people hear the phrase coding standards, they often think of surface-level rules: how many spaces to indent, where curly braces go, or whether semicolons are mandatory. Those details matter, but...

Software Engineering Coding Standards ESLint Essays