CS 373 Spring 2021 Week 4: Joseph Graham
- What did you do this past week?
This past week for CS 373 I mostly focused on reviewing the lectures and started to brainstorm ideas for project 2. Most of my time has been focusing on other courses so that I can be ahead for when project 2 drops.
2. What’s in your way?
I’m a little nervous about starting the next project as we have pretty large teams (5 to 6 people) and I have little knowledge about the tools being used that were surveyed on CATME.
3. What will you do next week?
Next week I will try to meet up with the group I get assigned, get to know them, and begin working with them on the next project. I may need to brush up on some of the tools we will be using for the project as well so that I don’t come unprepared to our meetups.
4. If you read it, what did you think of the Pair Programming?
I thought that the article made some really great points. Pair programming can be super daunting to any computer geek (me) and sometimes you just want to work alone. Working together boosts productivity so much and increases your learning too, so it’s a no-brainer to use. I thought it was funny how they connected it to kindergarten to make the points so simple that even a toddler could understand.
5. What was your experience of types?
Python is still relatively new to me so getting to learn more about the different types that exist in Python was great. Types in Python are different than what I’m used to in Java, but seem more straightforward and require fewer keystrokes which is always a bonus.
6. What made you happy this week?
My girlfriend got accepted into grad school for social work at UT! I’m incredibly proud of her hard work and can’t wait to see what she learns and where her future takes her.
7. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
We learned in class that we will need to use public RESTful APIs for our project to create a unique and helpful database. This reminded me of a great Tom Scott video (if you haven’t seen any of his videos, check them out, they’re great) where he explains how he used YouTube’s API to continuously update the video title to be the number of views on the video. He also goes over in detail the history and uses of APIs, the theory of Web 2.0, and how accessing data across the entire internet has amazingly fun, useful, and even dangerous implications.