CS371P Fall 2020 Blog 7: Mason Eastman

What did you do this past week?

This past week I started Allocator, and worked with my partner on the constructor and allocate functions. Other than that I went to lectures and started looking over my notes for trouble spots I’d need to study a little extra before the test in this class. I also had a chemistry exam last week, so I spent time preparing for that.

What’s in your way?

I’d say right now nothing is in my way, but between the test this week and the project, I know I’ve got a decent amount of work ahead. I also have a massive take-home test for another class next weekend, so I’m trying to get ahead on Allocator a bit with my partner since I know I’ll lose time because of that. Otherwise I just have regular work for my other classes.

What will you do next week?

Next week I’ll attend lectures, and study in preparation for the test this week. I’ll also try and work intermittently with my partner on Allocator — I’ve got regular classes otherwise, and my club has some events this week that I’ll attend if I have time.

If you read it, what did you think of The Open-Closed Principle?

I read it, and I thought it was a very informative and helpful read! Some if it I read and it sounded familiar, with concepts I either already practice or have been taught before. But some things were completely new to me, and so it was interesting to see and learn about new techniques and conventions to try and integrate into my code moving forward.

What was your experience of iterator concepts, std::array, and std::vector?

While not directly knowledgeable of the syntax of std::array and std::vector until now, the concepts behind them were decently familiar; what wasn’t immediately familiar was easy to translate over from my prior knowledge. Likewise for the iterator concepts. I used vector a lot in Voting, so it was interesting to learn it’s advantages and inner-workings a bit more in-depth.

What made you happy this week?

I got to see two close friends on Friday night, having not seen them in a few weeks, so that was a lot of fun! I also watched the OU game with my girlfriend, and even though we were disappointed with the result, it was still a ton of fun to spend the majority of the day with her.

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

My tip-of-the-week is to write down the algorithms you want to code before you code them. I started doing this in OS with my group, because we would only confuse ourselves more when we tried to code it right after sitting down. It seems self-explanatory, and I’m sure most people do it in some form or another; it really helps, and by having your algorithm/thoughts written organized in words, it’s much easier to code. By commenting it in your code you can even reference it each step of the way and match the code you write to the comments you have. This tactic has helped me a lot for this class’ projects!