Some Interesting Reads

          I have found the readings in the course so far to be long assignments, but quite interesting. While reading the two papers on college advice, I realized how helpful it would have been to have found these papers when I had first started college. Luckily, I had discovered many of the points over the years and my college experience has followed many of them in the end. One piece of advice I was surprised about was to take foreign language classes because I was always under the impression that these classes were very time-consuming and thus not very enjoyable. Sadly, I tried to avoid taking foreign language classes in college at all costs after having taken 5 years in high school. Now I wonder if I missed out on something...
          Likewise, I found the twelve chapters in Extreme Programming to be an interesting read, and discovered a lot of new programming techniques that I had never heard of before. For example, I found the relationship between customers and programmers described in the book to be quite intriguing and the author made many good points about how such a relationship could be highly beneficial. I especially related to how time-consuming email can be since it often takes people longer to respond and information is often lost in translation. I also agreed with the author's explanation of the benefits of pair programming, but found that many of the computer science courses I have taken discouraged programming with others. I understand that the professors want a more accurate representation of people's work, but I feel that there has always been a contradiction between programming in a school setting and in a work setting. For this reason, I am glad that this class relates better to the workplace and stresses pair programming as well as programming in large groups.