CS373 Spring 2021- Final Entry

Long term takeaways:

• test first, test during, test after; test, test, test
• when designing algorithms, demand the weakest capabilities (e.g. iterable vs. indexable)
• when designing containers, provide the strongest capabilities (e.g. indexable vs iterable)
• build decorators on top of containers, iterators, and functions
• utilize the benefits of being lazy (i.e. yield)
• always look for reuse and symmetry in your code
• collaboration is essential to the quality of your code and to your well-being in producing it
• refactor, refactor, refactor
• make your code beautiful

How well do you think the course conveyed those takeaways?
I think that the course conveyed those takeaways very strongly. I know that these takeaways were stressed a lot, for example, every lecture feature a plethora of tests, and the projects required many tests.

Were there any other particular takaways for you?
For me, another takeaway is the usage of version control. I never really stressed about it too much for school projects, but this class has helped me get used to using it, and it will be very useful to me in the future.

How did you feel about cold calling?
I wasn’t used to it at first, it stressed me out to speak in front of others. However, I did get used to it, and personally I wasn’t stressed to get cold called.

How did you feel about office hours?
I never attended the office hours for this class, so I cannot say for sure. However, Dr. Downing’s other class feature office hours so they were very useful.

How did you feel about lab sessions?
Our team didn’t really attend the lab sessions so I cannot say for sure.

What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?
Before this class, I only used gitlab maybe once, and I never realized until this class how useful it is in version control.

What’s the most useful Web dev tool that your group used that was not required?
Quicktype was a very useful tool that helped us be able to parse our api data.

How did you feel about your group having to self-teach many, many technologies?
It was very tough, and I am definitely not used to it. The project topics were rarely talked about in class, compared to the usual. It did allow me to become more independent though.

Give me your suggestions for improving the course.
Give partial credit on quizzes for question that have multiple answers.