CS373 Fall 2021: Blog 5
What did you do this past week?
This past week I did a lot! I went to classes, front-loaded a ton on my projects, managed and participated in EGaDS’ Game Jam, met with my group in this class to brainstorm some website ideas, and had time to cook dinner with my girlfriend two nights. A super busy week, but I managed to stay on top of things without being overwhelmed.
What’s in your way?
Nothing major thankfully. My big projects are due this week, but I’m nearly done with my individual one and working with my team on another. My team in here is still working on our proposal, but we’re planning to meet early this week to finalize that and get started.
What will you do next week?
Next week I’ll attend lectures, finish my projects in other classes, meet with my team in here to work on phase 1, and play everyone’s games from the Game Jam!
If you read it, what did you think of the Paper #5: Pair Programming?
I thought it was informative! I haven’t pair programmed much outside of OS and a couple of the OOP projects, but when I did it was nice. I enjoy always having a second set of eyes to look over your work as you’re doing it to check for mistakes — I find myself better understanding all aspects of the code even when I’m not driving. I’m glad it’s becoming more common at all levels and that the data continues to back up its benefits.
What was your experience with Python’s object model, list, tuple, set, dict, and iterators?
I’m familiar with most Python data structures, but the object model was new to me. I haven’t used the language in a way that I would need to be concerned with the object model, but it was really interesting to learn about. It was nice to get a more in-depth refresher of all the properties of the data structures too; never hurts to have.
What made you happy this week?
I’m really happy that the Game Jam went well! Since I both participated on a team and was responsible for the overall logistics, I was worried it would be stressful, but all was great. Managerially everything went really smoothly, and my team and I ended up with the most polished game we’ve made to date. If anyone is interested in playing you can find it here: https://jaspercmurphy.itch.io/loose-leaf.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My tip-of-the-week is to know when to stop and sleep. I have a pretty bad habit of plugging in for way too long when it doesn’t make sense to (like staying up until 2AM just to fix one bug, when it could’ve been done the next day!). A Game Jam is a bit different since every minute counts, but unless you’ve decided to save the entire project for the night before it’s due, a good night’s sleep will be much more beneficial than staying up late to fix one bug.
