In the semester of Spring 2025, ICS 314 has brought me some new and fun experiences when it comes to learning. One such experience involved learning a new programming language: TypeScript.
After learning some TypeScript, I can definitely say that the language was not too hard to get into after doing the tutorials provided to us. The foundation of learning a bit of JavaScript significantly aided in learning to add the different variable types needed. I really enjoyed doing the segments where we had to code the given topic ourselves because I felt like I was gaining a lot from doing so.
From what I learned so far in the semester, I think that TypeScript is a good programming language from a software engineering perspective because it makes you be explicit when it comes to variable and return types. Thinking about it, I did not even notice that JavaScript had no typing when it comes to variables. So TypeScript having typing for variables sounds like it would make things a lot more clear for fellow software engineers looking at said code.
One of the challenges introduced to me this semester was something called WODs, or Workout of the Day(s). This style of learning had us students have to code a solution to a problem within a set amount of time. Once we had our time, there were “tiers” of the amount of time it takes to solve the problem, where the faster the better.
Out of the two practice WODs we had, I only managed to find a solution for one of them and it took me almost all of the given time. Despite the less-than-ideal results, I personally enjoyed doing them as it gave me a clear goal to strive for, while having some form of bragging rights if done well, in the form of time for completion.
All in all, I do think WODs will be useful for me because I am typically on the slower side when it comes to these kinds of things so I feel this style of learning will really help me develop as a programmer and even in general problem solving.
I learned a lot in this module so I hope to continue to write more “scripts” throughout the semester!