CS373 Spring 2022: Luca Santos
- What did you do this past week?
This past week I spent a good amount of time getting used to this semester’s schedule and preparing myself to go back to in-person instruction for some of my classes. I also dedicated a fair chunk of the week to finishing up my first Symbolic Programming assignment!
2. What’s in your way?
I think I have been getting lost in thinking about the future and the past too much lately. I wish I could avoid being so much in my own head so to speak.
3. What will you do next week?
The plan for next week is to start and finish Collatz, as well as begin working on my second Symbolic Programming assignment. I also plan on continuing the design, and perhaps even some of the implementation of a game I have not worked on since mid winter break.
4. What did you think of Paper #1: Syllabus?
Most of it made sense to me, even though the scoring system seems new and strange to me at the moment. I have taken classes with this same professor before, so I would like to think that I am familiar with their overall style, but the Syllabus did strike me as wildly different. That is not to say I think it is better or worse than grading systems I have encountered in the past since it is far too early to be able to tell.
Overall, I think I will be happy with this course, and be able to get a lot of useful, practical experience from the projects.
5. What was your experience of assertions and Collatz? (this question will vary, week to week)
I am fairly familiar with Collatz as a computational problem, and have seen and used assertions all throughout my time in UTCS. It is, however, an interesting observation to point out how assertions can sometimes complicate matters for the user, even though the programmer might benefit from their use. Placing them at appropriate places, meant to catch failure of preconditions of postconditions, is something I still strive to improve.
5. What made you happy this week?
My mother has been diagnosed clear of a disease she had been dealing with for a while!
6. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
TAKE BREAKS! No, seriously, do. Any discipline will demonstrate that the only outcomes you will get from working exhausted are frustration, poorly designed projects, and a tremendous waste of time. Sometimes it cannot be helped; it may be that you have a deadline fast approaching, or maybe your calendar is booked up and you have no choice but to get your assignments done very early. HOWEVER, I am willing to bet, based on personal experience, that most of the time, you can give yourself extra space and time to succeed. The products of looking at a problem and working on it for a couple hours at a time are necessarily wildly different than “coding” non-stop for eight hours. We all need to sleep, eat, and relax. Being humans with basic needs does not mean we cannot strive for success, but it is imperative that we know when to put the ego down and try again later with a fresh mind. You will save much more time this way :)
Remember, this is not an excuse to slack off or to call a couple hours of you staring at the open terminal screen while distracted work >:0
