Technical on The Techno Scholar Chronicles

Book Review: Engineering Design: A Survival Guide to Senior Capstone

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Engineering Design: A Survival Guide to Senior Capstone contains a wealth of information about the engineering design process. One of the goals of this textbook is to bridge the gap between academia and industry. To that end, it draws on project management resources and provides extensive insights from an industry perspective—yet it remains tailored to senior design courses.

I used this textbook while developing a capstone course in computer engineering. Although I couldn’t implement every design process outlined in the book (especially in a one-semester course), it served as a strong foundation to build upon. My advice for instructors is to treat it as a flexible resource—pick and choose the most important parts of the design process to include in your course. For students, this book can be a valuable resource, not only to help navigate senior design but also to prepare for and gain exposure to design work in industry.

Book Review: Digital Design and Computer Architecture, RISC-V Edition

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0500

I am an instructor, and we use this textbook to teach Computer Architecture. I enjoyed reading it and thought the authors wrote in a simple and understandable style. They introduced and built on concepts throughout the book, providing detailed explanations and a wealth of information. The book can be read cover-to-cover or used as a reference. It offers many circuits, designs, and relevant information for each topic.

The textbook uses examples throughout each chapter to work through problems and designs. At the end of each chapter, there are numerous exercise problems that cover the material, with solutions to odd-numbered exercises provided through an online supplement on the authors’ website. Additionally, the authors include sample interview questions that have been asked during real job interviews—something worth looking at if you’re preparing for one!

Book Review: Git: Project Management for Developers and DevOps Teams

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0600

I very much enjoyed reading this book as it has helped teach me the skills I need to use Git in my professional work. The authors, in my opinion, were very thorough on the topic. They explored not just Git, but how Git can be used by developers in teams. They covered the Git commands, low-level details of how Git internally works (up to a point for basic understanding), using Git with platforms such as GitHub and GitLab (and other alternative platforms), workflows using Git in teams, using Git in real life, Git problems and solutions, etc.

Book Review: Python Microservices Development: Build, test, deploy, and scale microservices in Python

Fri, 05 May 2023 00:00:00 -0500

This book was a good read for me. It covered many aspects of developing microservices in Python that are relevant to my engineering job. Some of these aspects include developing a REST API with a web server such as Flask; writing, testing, and documenting code; interacting with other services via synchronous vs. asynchronous calls; using task or topic queues (e.g., RabbitMQ); monitoring services; securing services; packaging services; containerizing services; and deploying on AWS. The aim of the book is to provide insight and examples of how to develop a microservice by focusing on a toy application called Runnerly.

Book Review: The Legacy Code Programmer's Toolbox: Practical Skills for Developers Working with Legacy Code

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0600

I had this book sitting on my desk for a few years, recommended by a coworker. Life got busy. I decided to pick it back up and finish it! Here’s some of the insight I’ve learned from it.

The author begins by defining legacy code as code that is hard to understand, uncomfortable to change, and causes concern. Attitude plays a significant role in how we approach legacy code. There’s the natural mindset, often negative, versus the effective mindset, which is more constructive. We can choose to understand legacy code as a solution to past problems accumulated over time and recognize it as a reason we have jobs.