CS371p Spring 2021: Week 12

Week 12 Reflections

What did you do this past week?

This past week was another somewhat hectic one trying to finish up Darwin on time.

What’s in your way?

No single thing in particular is in my way more than usual. At this point it’s mostly just that there are a number of things to do for each class I’m taking, which can really add up.

What will you do next week?

I’ll tell myself that I’ll start on the next project, but in all honesty I probably won’t end up getting around to it.

If you read it, what did you think of the “More on Getters and Setters”?

I tried to read this paper, but ultimately failed. I just couldn’t trudge though all of the Java UI code and wasn’t very engaged by the presentation of object oriented concepts in that context. Since we only need to do 10 out of the 15 papers, I decided this week could be a pass.

What was your experience of sequence containers, container adapters, and associative containers?

Sequence containers is what they’re called! I only knew them by the name of “workhorses” since that’s what Prof. Downing kept calling them. Honestly the deque is pretty cool and gives a lot of useful functionality while still maintaining amortized symmetric O(1) front/back operations and constant time indexing. The implementation of the container adapters and associative containers actually makes a lot of sense now that I understand the considerations that go into choosing a backing container, allowing or disallowing certain operations, etc.

What made you happy this week?

My parents were in town this weekend so I ate much better than I usually do in a typical week! I would highly recommend Terry Black’s BBQ in Austin.

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

I’ve personally found making upfront investments in my learning has paid off a lot more than delaying things. Many people I know tend to put off truly learning the material until immediately before the exam. They figure things out enough to complete the assignments reasonably well in the meantime, however the real “learning” doesn’t happen until the night before the exam. While internalizing the material as you go definitely does take a somewhat larger investment early on, it pays off in the days leading up to the exam/major project deadline, which are much less stressful. (Unfortunately I’m not always so good at taking my own advice D:)