CS371p Spring 2021 Blog#2

What did you do this past week?

I didn’t do much this week, besides going to classes and finishing the first homework assignments for most of my classes. The workload started to pick up this week with a decent amount of work being assigned this past week.

What’s in your way?

I think procrastination is in my way at the moment. It was something I struggled with last semester, but I’ve been working on it and have been on top of my tasks these couple of weeks. I really do need to keep it up, as it really helps my mental health as well!

What will you do next week?

This week should consist of programming everyday! I was assigned a project in all three of my CS classes, so I plan on working everyday to allow my self ample time to complete all my work, without waiting for the last moment.

If you read it, what did you think of the makefile?

The makefile is a bit more than any makefile I have created. It is very interesting to look through it and see how efficient it makes working, with the many different actions that can be done much quicker with the makefile. There were some confusing parts of the file though, but I’m glad I got some questions answered through Perusall.

What was your experience of Docker?

Although I haven’t used it much, I feel that it makes the programming experience much smoother when working with specific tools that are recommended for our project’s implementation. It’s really nice to not have to install all the tools onto my personal machine, as well as not having to ssh into a lab machine. I’ve always had some trouble using ssh on my windows machine, so this is a nice alternative.

What was your experience of assertions?

I used to use assertions for finding bugs in my programs after testing and failing the tests. I haven’t really used assertions to solely test my programs. I want to try to use assertions more throughout testing, and debugging my code.

What was your experience of unit tests?

I think unit tests are the best way to test your code. I really liked the idea to write a test before fixing a bug in your code. I think it allows the programmer to create more efficient code, and see problems that may not have been obvious otherwise.

What made you happy this week?

Going off what made me happy last week, my Overwatch team won our weekly league match, so that was a lot of fun and made for some good free time!

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My tip-of-the-week is to not try and finish an entire project in one sitting. I find myself figuring out different problems at the strangest times, so I think it is healthy to spend some time away from the computer to get the creative juices flowing. You may find yourself solving a crisis while looking in your fridge.