CS 373 Spring 2023: Niyati Prabhu

• What did you do this past week?

This past week, I spent a lot of time working on the IDB project with my team. It was difficult to get a good start on it initially, but we were able to finish everything on time. I also worked on designing wireframes for my iOS app project with my other group. I also studied for a few quizzes and did assignments for other classes. Lastly, I filmed my marching and playing video auditions for my Longhorn Band leadership application.

• What’s in your way?

I have an exam and a presentation this week that I need to prepare for, so I’m worried that I may not have time to work on the IDB project much this week. Schoolwork has definitely started to pick up, so I’ll definitely have to be good with my time management.

• What will you do next week?

This week, I will finish designing wireframes for my iOS group project and begin creating a skeleton app and screens. I also have a homework assignment in iOS to complete early in the week. I’ll study for my exam and do readings to prepare for my presentation. For IDB, my group needs to begin coming up with user stories that we want to implement in phase II, and then we need to start working on the back end for our website. Lastly, I have an interview for my leadership audition process.

• What did you think of Paper #6. The Open-Closed Principle?

I liked the paper — I read it last semester in OOP. The information in this paper integrates really well with the previous paper about the one responsibility principle. They both mentioned ideas around keeping classes simple: they should have one responsibility, and they should not be needlessly modified after creation. Designing code like this for large, complex projects is probably not feasible, but it’s a good idea to keep in mind and use whenever possible.

• What was your experience of operators, iteration, and ethics presentation? (this question will vary, week to week)

I think the built in operations seem very useful, especially given the fact that they can be called either with the operator symbol, as a function call, or as a method call. I’m familiar with the idea of iterators from both Java and C++. It’s useful to contain a specialized iterator class in order to iterate through the data structure more than once. I really enjoyed the ethics presentation — the lecturers used current examples to demonstrate a point.

• What made you happy this week?

This week, I made a very delicious tom yum soup with tofu, noodles, and lots of veggies — it tasted great! I shared it with a friend while we watched a movie.

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

If you ever need to come up with a creative name for a product, ask ChatGPT! I generated ideas for both my iOS group project and IDB on ChatGPT — though I did tweak them a little. If you’re at a loss, it’s a great way to get the wheels churning, and it’s pretty fun to play around with.