CS 371p Spring 2020: Week of 4/6
- What did you do this past week?
This week, in addition to some exams in other courses, I started planning for the Darwin project. It appears to be a more challenging project than the others, partially because we are given no code and partially because we are to write several interdependent classes without getters and setters. I understand why it’s important to write encapsulated, self-sufficient code, but it will take more forethought and planning to make sure each class can do everything that is required of it.
2. What’s in your way?
I’ve written plans for all the code I need to write, but I haven’t started writing it yet! I’m planning to have all my files created and my testing environment set up by tonight, but I will still have quite a bit of work to do at the beginning of the week. I also assume things are going to go wrong, as they tend to do when working on a large project with several classes.
3. What will you do next week?
I will finish Darwin, of course! I also plan to implement an actual exercise routine and making sure to sit outside at least a few minutes each day, so I can stop having so much cabin fever.
4. What was your experience of vector? (this question will vary, week to week)
Working on the vector class in class was helpful, I think, in that the practice will help me remember to use the const keyword in the function headers that could use it. I also would have made mistakes with the equals-assignment operator if I’d had to implement it myself in any class (such as forgetting to free existing memory in use), and while I probably could have figured it out eventually experiencing it in class probably helped.
5. What was your experience of the ethics material? (this question will vary, week to week)
I think it was important, and that it made some points I wouldn’t have considered myself. While I think of CS ethics as the obvious problems of data management and security, it does make sense that there would be several other situations in the business world where CS knowledge can be used unethically.
While it would have been nice to have the presentation in person (there were some parts of the slideshow that didn’t make much sense without the explanation that surely would have accompanied it), I understand that wouldn’t be possible in this quarantine and having the slides was better than nothing.
6. What made you happy this week?
We got to eat chocolate cake yesterday! I wasn’t expecting to have baked goods for some time, my sister found a recipe with surprisingly few ingredients that takes only minutes to make, so we got to have a treat.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My tip of the week is to eat cake! Here’s a link to a recipe:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/262841/no-egg-chocolate-mug-cake/
It essentially takes minutes to make, and it’s pretty good! You probably shouldn’t eat too much, but a treat now and then is probably good for your mental health.
