Wk07/08: CST 338: Software Design. Learning Journal Summary

Looking back at HW01: Hangman, I can clearly see how much my approach to programming has matured over the course of the semester. At the time, this assignment felt large and overwhelming, but revisiting it now, I recognize how many foundational skills I successfully developed and how much more confident I am applying them today.

One major victory was learning how to structure a program across multiple classes instead of trying to place all logic in a single file. In HW01, I separated responsibilities such as game logic, word handling, and user interaction. At the beginning of the semester, designing class responsibilities felt abstract, but now I understand how encapsulation makes code easier to reason about, debug, and extend.

Another important win was becoming comfortable with testing and debugging using JUnit. My Hangman project included multiple test cases validating constructor behavior, word selection, guesses, hints, and game state progression. While tests initially failed, I learned how to read stack traces, isolate logic errors, and iteratively fix issues until all tests passed. This experience made testing feel like a development tool rather than an obstacle.

A third area of growth was file handling and error management. HW01 required reading from and writing to files such as testWords.txt. I encountered file-not-found and duplication issues, but I learned how to handle these cases safely and ensure the program continued to function correctly. At the start of the semester, file I/O errors were confusing; now I know how to anticipate and guard against them.

If I were to redo HW01 today, I would plan the class design and test cases upfront instead of discovering structure as I coded. Overall, this assignment represents a turning point where I moved from “getting code to work” to understanding why it works. I feel significantly more confident in my ability to design, test, and debug Java applications than I did at the beginning of the semester, and HW01 clearly reflects that progress.


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