TWiT TV - Coding 101 Episode 94

https://twit.tv/shows/coding-101/episodes/94?autostart=false

I've been watching Coding 101 with Fr. Robert Ballecer on TWiT TV and on this episode 94 he briefly discussed with other IT professionals on how a former Microsoft programmer, Mike Borozdin, put out a article that was published by Life Hacker talking about the skills that you would want out of a professional programmer. The former Microsoft programmer stated in the article that the most important skill in addition to programming is knowing how to write. He stated that part of being a good programmer is knowing how to express yourself in writing. This is important because programmers will need to know how to explain a program to managers, developers, users, and clients in writing, and the more skillful a programmer is at writing the better. 

When this topic was discussed on this podcast show, everyone on the show agreed that being able to communicate clearly and effectively is vital to any professional programmers success. They stated that as their careers grew as a professional programmer, they found themselves spending more time communicating and interacting with others. They all stated that being able to communicate clearly and effectively during the interview process is just as important as knowing how to program. 

In my opinion, I think that knowing how to program is just half of what potential employers are looking for and the other half is having the soft skills, including effective communication both oral and written. This Coding 101 episode further proved how valuable soft skills are in the IT field. What are your thoughts?  

TED Talks Review

Why we will rely on robots?

http://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_why_we_will_rely_on_robots#

As a IT Mobile Applications Developer student, I find this TED talk presentation by Rodney Brooks titled "Why we will rely on robots?" very interesting. He stated at the beginning of his presentation that he is worried whether or not we are going to get the technology we need in the long-term because the demographics are going to leave us with lots of jobs that need doing and that we, our society, is going to have to be built on the shoulders of steel robots in the future. He is concerned 40 years from now that there will not be enough robots to do mundane jobs such as factory work because of the changing demographic.

In his presentation, Rodney Brooks demonstrated and argued why he believes that we will rely on robots and that artificial intelligence will not decrease jobs, instead it will help improve overall efficiency. He believes the key is to have robots that ordinary workers can interact with so that workers are not displaced from the technology. He introduces Baxter, the first wave of robots that ordinary people can interact with in an industrial setting. Baxter demonstrated that ordinary people can interact with robots and that technology allows robots to be programmed with biological principles of movement and reasoning. 

In the future, I can envision people ordering fast food through mobile applications and paying for it in advance. The data for the order is then received, prepared, and delivered by robots to hungry customers driving through the drive thru in their autonomous vehicles. What are your thoughts?  

Time Conversion Program

The objective of this assignment is to continue to practice parameter passing between methods and functions. I designed an application that will convert a user input integer number of seconds into equivalent number of hours, minutes, and seconds. I created a method to enter the initial seconds, then created functions to convert the seconds to the proper amount of hours and minutes. I then created the last function to display the results. I used "out" to pass by reference and a modulus (%) to calculate the remaining user input value. The following is the output of the executable after completing the calculations: 

Social Media Report

Since the introduction of Facebook and Twitter, organizations such as Hilton and Marriott are both using these social media platforms to boost brand loyalty and recognition to their audiences. Both Hilton and Marriott uses Facebook and Twitter to create a vibrant culture and lifestyle. They both identify with their wide range of audiences through travels, pleasures, luxuries and much more. Their audiences can vary from leisure, to business travelers, to anywhere in between. They both are very proactive in responding to guest dissatisfaction by commenting and offering further assistance for the disgruntled Facebook or Twitter user using social media to express their disappointment. However, although both organizations are competing within the same industry, their social media strategies are different from one another.

Hilton’s social media strategy is to promote travel and leisure by posting pictures of different travel destinations from around the world and to engage their audiences by allowing them to comment. They also connect with their audience by allowing them to submit pictures to post on Facebook and Twitter. By posting scenic pictures on Facebook and Twitter, they are inspiring their audience to come to experience this moment for yourself. They also hyperlink promotions and other newsfeed through Facebook and Twitter. To manage relationships with their audiences, Hilton post stories of community, experience, and current trends. A year after Hurricane Odile’s destruction to Baja California Peninsula, Hilton posted different videos showing unity, strength, and commitment during the rebuilding process. The following is a Facebook post by Hilton:

Hilton will also recognize current trends through Facebook and Twitter such as “I’m against bullying #SPIRITDAY”, which was displayed on their cover photo for both social media platforms as shown below:

(Facebook)

(Twitter)

Marriott’s social media strategy is to brand themselves as the industry leader when it comes to cutting edge technology.  The heading “Travel Brilliantly” markets new technological features such as their new virtual reality room service feature and offers a guest a virtual reality experience. A guest can experience this service by using a headset called “VR” that is available in some hotels. The following are Facebook and Twitter posts by Marriott : 

(Facebook)

(Twitter)

To manage relationships with their audiences, Marriott promotes different technologies such as different mobile apps through Facebook and Twitter and empowers their audience to engage by being able to provide valuable feedback to them . They also encourage their audience to share ideas and are open to new creative concepts in mobile applications that’ll reinvent travel. The following is a Facebook post by Marriott : 

Marriott will also post current traveling tips based on the season and recognize current trends such as “#NationalDessertDay” as shown below:

In conclusion, social media is a powerful tool that can help organizations connect and engage with their audiences and helps build brand loyalty and recognition. From my research and observation, both Hilton and Marriott are very proactive in updating, connecting, and responding to their audiences through Facebook and Twitter. Clearly, the use of social media platforms by organizations is a powerful way to connect, promote, and share news with their audiences. Social media provides organizations with a wealth of useful, and valuable information and much, much more, which should validate the importance and utilization of social media to any organization.

Math Operations Program

I decided to tackle this assignment after work tonight, and a few syntax errors, and hours later, I finally succeeded! This assignment 's objective is to learn how to create functions, and methods, and to pass, and receive variables from them. I created four static functions that performs various math operations (*/+-) in the mainModule source file. The mainModule is the class that contains Main() and the four functions. I used no Console code in the functions, so therefore I had to pass and receive variables by passing in parameters and returning the result. The functions have two parameters ( values that the user will perform math operations on ) and is programmed to return the result. I used various custom numeric format specifiers to determine how many digits should be printed to the right of the decimal. I decided to use double as the floating-point value. These functions have been tested in Main and the following are the results of the calculations:

Fahrenheit to Celsius Program

I just wrote a program that converts a temperature given in Fahrenheit to Celsius. This program allows the user to enter values for the original Fahrenheit value. Once the Fahrenheit value is entered into the program by the user, it'll display the original temperature and the formatted converted value. I declared the FahrenheitToCelsius variable three times, so therefore the user can input three different Fahrenheit values and this program will output three different Celsius values. I also experimented with coding different colors for keywords to enhance this program. This program is my first extra credit assignment, and I'm starting to love C# more, and more each week, as I continue to develop my skills in this programming language. Below is a screenshot of the program:

C# Inputs and Outputs Formatting

Updated: Friday, September 25, 2015

My mini-payroll application has been revised to include the dollar symbol and decimals. After re-programming the code, this mini-payroll application is now capable of calculating in decimals and outputs the totals in a currency format. Some of the other changes I have made included the variables. I declared the CalculatePayroll(); variable a total of three times, so therefore the memory has been allocated (namespace is also CalculatePayroll), and once the method was coded, the function has the capability to repeat itself three separate times for the end user during the output process. I have also added a Console.Beep command to the code, which uses a random number generator to create different sounds to notify the user that the previous entry has been completed, and that a new entry was to follow. Lastly, I changed the colors around to make it easier on the eyes and added blue lines as a separator between employees. Below is the output generated from displaying the results of the calculations:

It's about 4AM in the morning and I just completed a working executable for assignment # 2.  Even though this assignment is not due for over a week or so, I managed to battle through it after spending countless hours reading, learning, and planning on how to execute this homework assignment in Visual Studio. The program that I just created was a mini-payroll application that multiplied the employee's hourly rate by the number of hours that the employee had worked, resulting in the employee's total pay. This program used the employee's name in the prompts for the hourly rate, number of hours worked, and the amount to be paid. Once I compiled the code for this program and got it to work, I called CalculatePayroll() three times and entered different values for the prompts. As you can see from below, I also coded different colors for each line.