CS371P Spring 2021: Safin Kasturi
What did you do this past week?
This past week I had to take an exam for my culture class, which went alright. I also finished up the voting project (last night actually). In concept, I didn’t find this project very difficult, but it took me so long to debug little errors. I think part of the reason it took me so long to debug is that I have no prior experience with C++. Last week I also finished a project for my artificial intelligence class, and finished an ethics assignment for my business law class.
What’s in your way?
Now that the voting project is finished, there’s really nothing significant in my way. I have to finish reading my assigned chapter of my artificial intelligence textbook, and start looking for literature courses for the summer, but that’s about it.
What will you do next week?
Next week I’ll spend some time trying to get ahead on my material for all my courses so that I don’t have to worry about it over spring break.
If you read it, what did you think of the Open-Closed Principle?
I really like the main ideas of the Open-Closed Principle. I think of it as almost cementing a strong foundation for your code, layer by layer, such that no previously built layer can be destroyed by trying to modify functionality. The general principle of extending code rather than modifying it also helps the developer keep in mind to not write code that is too specific at any given level.
What was your experience of arrays, iterators, and algorithms? (this question will vary, week to week)
The lectures on arrays, iterators, and algorithms were quite useful for me, as I’m not super comfortable with the differences between pointers, addresses, references, and arrays. I do like the C++ provided Arrays class though, as it has a lot of quick functionality. I also found the content on iterators very useful, as I really didn’t know the different types of iterators until we discussed them in class.
What made you happy this week?
This weekend I came home (to Dallas) and am staying through the end of spring break, so I’m glad that I’m getting to spend some extra time at home with my family. I’m also super excited to see Roger Federer make his return to the tennis court in a couple days.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My pick of the week is the text editor VS Code. I recently discovered that VS Code has a very easy to use extension you can install and use to SSH into the school lab machines, to run things that you may not have on your local machine. I used it for the voting project and found it very helpful.
