CS373 Fall 2021 Blog 13: Mason Eastman
What did you do this past week?
A lot! Other than going to class, I finished up Phase 3 with my team, immediately turned around to continue my project with my Game Programming Paradigms team, and after that was due later in the week I’ve been grinding out my final Information Retrieval project. With all the coding I’ve done this week, my dreams will exclusively be about programming for a few days.
What’s in your way?
Nothing really! With as busy as I was the past week, it’ll be nice to have a bit of a lighter load and a break. All I will have left this semester project-wise is Phase 4 and my open-ended Game Programming Paradigms final game, and I’m excited about working on both.
What will you do next week?
Next week I’ll go to the few classes I have, turn in some assignments, and drive home back to Dallas with my sister! I’m really excited to be home and take a load off from school.
If you read it, what did you think of the Paper #13: Why Extends is Evil?
I thought it was interesting! I have fallen prey to using the extends keyword a lot in java, mostly out of convenience. However, as codebases get larger and new things are introduced, that can quickly become a problem that takes longer to solve than it does to plan around. Like many of the previous papers, this one shows why good design and planning is so important and will save lots of time in the long run should code requirements/features change.
What was your experience of SQL?
I’ve never used SQL formally, but the more we talk about it in class and practice with the exercises the more I appreciate and understand it. It seems to be really powerful and allows for efficient writing of code since it’s declarative. I also like how we tied in all the Python relational algebra code/concepts to make the SQL digestion easier.
What made you happy this week?
My sister is in Longhorn Singers, and they had their semester show on Saturday! My family came down to see it, so I got to see them which was really nice. My girlfriend, mom, and I went to spend Saturday afternoon at the Domain too which was really fun.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My pick-of-the-week is to write out all of your algorithms in pseudo-code or even just plain English before opening your editor to implement. It’s something I don’t do enough myself, but I’m trying to get into the habit of practicing more. I’ve found that I’ll reach the solution faster and it will make more sense if I take the time to write/think through it on paper first!
