CS371p: Week 4

What did you do this past week?
This past week I completed the Collatz project on time, attended the lectures, and looked through the online notes afterwards to make sure I understood everything.

What’s in your way?
The only thing in my way is just stress. I always feel like there’s too many things to do, so looking ahead can be daunting. However, I have been able to keep up so far, so I’m sure I will be fine!

What will you do next week?
I will continue going to lectures, and attend office hours if anything is unclear. I also have some projects for other classes to work on, so I will be busy taking care of those.

If you read it, what did you think of the Pair Programming?
I was surprised by the magnitude of the effect pair programming has, as well as how extreme the practice is. I recall that if one person had come up with some ideas alone, those ideas should all be scrapped and redeveloped in the pair, which seems counterproductive. However, the results speak for themselves. The quality of code is significantly better, and though it takes slightly longer to write, the tradeoff is well worth it.

What was your experience of operators, pointers, and references?
I enjoyed walking through all the examples, which really helped me gaina more practical understanding of how values are passed. C++ definitely has some strange conventions with how values are returned, making things like “++++i” possible.

What made you happy this week?
This past Friday was Chinese New Year! Our family celebrated with a hot-pot dinner, and we also got to reconnect with some relatives from Hong Kong.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
Stay after class for a few minutes! A lot of people ask great questions (and you can too) that really clarify the lecture, and it only takes 5 extra minutes of your day.