Week 7: Taking a Step Back to Move Forward

Hitting a Block and Rethinking the Approach

This week, I was still struggling to figure out how to properly fix and implement the moderator part in the emcee module. During the weekly meeting, Dr. Shawn suggested that I redo everything from a cleaner starting point. I also realized that I wasn’t fully confident with my current implementation, which made the decision to restart feel necessary.

Starting Fresh (The Right Way)

After Dr. Shawn reset the repository, I began by upgrading all package dependencies step by step to ensure compatibility with Riverpod v3. To avoid further complications, I temporarily disabled the polling mixin function. Once everything was stable, I updated Dr. Shawn with proof that the application was running correctly without the mixin. This gave me a clean and stable baseline to continue from.

Lessons Learned

This week taught me an important lesson — sometimes stepping backward actually helps you move forward faster. Instead of forcing a solution while being stuck in the same loop, it is better to simplify and rebuild with clarity.

Dr. Shawn also shared a valuable insight:

“The first solution is always wrong, especially when we are unfamiliar with the problem. Adding more lines of code doesn’t mean solving it — it often increases the chance of breaking the system. Keep the code minimal and clean.”

This changed the way I think about problem-solving. It’s not about doing more, but doing it right and keeping things simple.

Live Event at Sunway University

This week, I also supported another 2-day live competition event on 25th and 26th April at Sunway University. As usual, I handled the technical setup, including laptops for judges and emcees, as well as tablets for ushers.

One recurring issue I faced was the university’s WiFi. The application would frequently return to the authentication page instead of staying on the home screen, requiring repeated logins. Despite that, the event still ran smoothly. I also took the opportunity to observe how users interact with the app, which gave me useful insights for future improvements.

Looking Ahead

For next week, I plan to ask Dr. Shawn to review my latest pull request (without the mixin implementation) and continue working on making the mixin compatible with Riverpod v3.

Hoping to do much better next week — cleaner code, clearer thinking, and better solutions.