Type this: Data

Learning about abstract data types right now in class.  I'll admit with our government now openly kidnapping citizens to send to death camps in foreign countries makes everything seem silly.  Yet I continue with the learning journey I've always been on.

This course is a great introduction to ADTs and their uses. I'm looking forward to using it in my projects going forward. 

Parallel Problems

I've been working on a chess idea for the AT Proto, and now it turns out my final project for my Intro to CS class is to build a chess variant program.   

On the plus side I inadvertently designed at least one part of my program a month before my class even began, but it also means I need to redirect some energy into rethinking how I am gonna structure the game.  

Should be fun 

Overcomplicating Recursion

As I study recursion and begin applying it in my homework, I notice some similarities, or at least tenuous connections between recursion steps and troubleshooting.

IT support should work on the basis of elimination of a class of issues at a time, until you drill down to the root issue.  I recommend reading DevOps Troubleshooting by Kyle Rankin for more on this subject.

Recursion looks to eliminate a choice, usually between two options, until it returns your root cause, or base case.  

I can't comprehend this List

More accurate, would be to say I don't like listening comprehension at the moment.  I'd rather write more verbose code than use it. Which means I need to push myself to use it more and get better with it.  

Right now the issue lays in knowing how to connect certain variables and their respective positions.  I'm sure my upcoming assignments will have need of it and that's frightening.  Oh well, til tomorrow. 

Ideation Abounds

Found an interesting book I had saved.  140 simple python programs.  Gave me an idea for my portfolio site. Might make it a randomizer button that loads one of the simple programs side by side within the code. 

Group Projects

One of my favorite things we've done in my Intro to CS classes is having code reviews with small groups over a few assignments.  I've found them to be incredibly interesting and helpful.  Getting to see others approach things like doc strings and class inheritance helps contextualize a lot of what the instructors teach.  

Reading over and over

Because I've taken a lot of personal steps to learning programming and coding over the years, I've also had the same concepts presented to me in a wide variety of ways.  

It's easy enough to follow along with writing your own scripts from a video tutorial or book, but for me, I think it's limited my lateral thinking for code.