The Blog Postiest

Well, here’s the school year almost done, same as it did last year. All in all, I think that this class was fun, as much as I could be motivated to do much of anything through the creeping fog of senioritis clouding my brain. In many ways, I thought it was very similar to the latter half of computer programming last year, but with java as opposed to python, but in the end they were very different classes, and the way that one transitioned into the other was well done. Back in computer programming, we spent almost the entire year without really programming, simply working with scratch or jeroo. Not that that wasn't fun, mind, but it wasn't really using a programming language, except for the butchered, twisted incarnation of python that was jeroo’s instructions. In this class, though, almost all of our time was spent on actual programming, without sacrificing the focus on the algorithms and theory behind the code. We were learning the code, the physical words and notations that allowed the computer to complete its goals, but we did so as a framing device for the ideas that programming is founded on, and in doing so didn’t just learn the basics, just enough to scrape by on the AP, but actually understood what we were doing. I think that cargo bot helped with that. I’m not saying that you should use it in every single programming class ever, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. I also appreciated the switch to allowing us to work on the labs in partners, rather than alone, because it let me dump all of the work on my partner and just sleep in class. Kidding, of course. It was actually mainly useful for getting a different perspective. I might be trying to think my way through some snag on a lab, when suddenly my partner just comes up with the solution that works without any bugs, and with about a fifth of the code. It’s just useful to have someone else to look at your code and tell you precisely why you are a moron that shouldn’t be allowed to touch a computer with a ten foot pole, is all. Other than that, I don’t have too much to say about this year in particular. I felt that I was prepared well for the AP, there weren’t any problems where I just had to sit there and stare at it because I didn’t have the first idea what to do, or any concepts on the test that just stumped me. The only real problem was with the time, with me finishing off the last multiple choice questions as the timer counted down. The free response, though, was pretty trivially short, so I didn’t have any real problems there. They really ought to switch the times around for those two sections. So, overall, the class was a good, in depth look at the mechanics of java and some of the theoretical underpinnings of it and programming in general, and I feel that it left my well prepared for the test. Some of the theoretical stuff, however, ended up being problematic. There would be a long, drawn out explanation of the concepts behind how java handles references, that I would get completely lost on. Feeling utterly out of my depth, I would go to do a lab or take a quiz, only to find… it was the exact same thing I had been doing all along. I’m just saying, I thought some stuff was kind of superfluous.

Bugs

I'm not sure if I really care about GridWorld and Bugs. I mean, sure, its important to know, just because its on the AP Exam a whole lot, but honestly it just feels like Jeroo with some weird tricks thrown in and not nearly so many obstacles as to make it a game in the same way that Jeroo was. It didn't really teach many important concepts, either. It was just really the terminology and ways of working around GridWorld in ways that might be questioned on the AP. Other than a few tidbits it didn't really feel like I was learning about coding, it just felt like I was learning more about GridWorld. I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it, learning about it is necessary for the upcoming AP Exam, but I'm saying it not the most fun I've ever had on some assignments in AP Compsci.

Blog Post

I like sorting pretty well. I mean, it's not my favorite thing in programming ever, but its still fun. The thing I like best about it, funnily enough, is also the thing I think is the most pointless about it, that there are so many different kinds. Working on all of the different kinds of sorts, with each one doing things its own way is enjoyable, because it means there are so many different methods of attack to sorting something. On the other hand, they do seem fairly redundant to me. I mean, they're nice, and each one does have its own niche where it works best, but on the other hand all they're all doing is sorting. There are specific situations where one just won't work and you need to use another, but the main difference between them seems to be relative efficiency. That is important, and it is a good reason for having so many different kinds of sorts, but at the scales of data we're working with in class it seems very minor, unless you do what other Sam tried to do with  some kind of weird bogo sort except not that nearly crashed java. As for Finches, I don't really have anything to say, mainly because we did Finches in computer programming last year, and not a whole lot has changed since then. We didn't even really use the Finches, to be honest, we just used them to gather data, which we then sorted. Seeing as I just spent a fair amount of time talking about sorting, I don't feel the need to go over that part again. My Spring Break was pretty good, even if I didn't do very much. One thing I did finally do was watch Looper, that action movie where Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-levitt played the same guy because time travel. I had been meaning to ever since I heard of it because the premise of Bruce Willis as a time travelling assassin sounds awesome, and I did last week. It was pretty good.

Sorting

Sorting is pretty fun. None of the labs thus far have been very challenging, and they're pretty straightforward, what with them just being sorting items. However, I still don't like sorting all that much because there's so many different ways to do it, and most of them just feel really useless. I know its not really the case, but it still feels like you'd find the best sort and then just stick with that, or with one or two sorts. Still, doing useless redundant stuff is what I do best, so I suppose that me and sorting are practically made for each other.

Quiz

I am really surprised that I got a 10 out of 10 on this quiz. I wasn't here for nearly a class and a half while we were learning inheritance and such, and as such I just didn't get what was going on for a lot of pong. I was still able to be helpful, but a lot of the concepts were kind of fuzzy. Then I kind of spaced out during the abstract classes thing a little bit, and though I got that one better than inheritance, it wasn't completely clear. But then I took the quiz, and maybe its just because I had the presentations to see, but I got everything, which was pretty weird. I'm not complaining, mind, but its just a little odd.

More Pong

Other than on Thursday, we've really just kept working on Pong. I have to admit, I like Pong better with all of the bizarre, inexplicable bugs. My personal favorite from mine and Darian's was when the block would occasionally get behind the paddle by passing through it, and then bounce back and forth in the space of about three pixels, making it look like its vibrating for a second before shooting out in a random direction. Or there was the one were it would randomly speed up, slow down, or change direction whenever it was at the same y coordinate as the right paddle, making it look like it was dodging the paddle as we tried to check if they could actually collide properly. In the end, though, we managed to iron out all of the bugs (we think) and  now its just boring regular pong again.

Pong

Pong is a fairly frustrating lab. First of all, because I wasn't here on the day that the concepts that pong revolves around were introduced, so I'm effectively learning it through the lab. Second of all, because there are so many files involved, you have to test every aspect of it one by one, which can get really tedious. Finally, because its Pong. I mean, yeah yeah, cornerstone of gaming history, whatever, it doesn't change the fact that Pong sucks and I hate it and it deserves to die. We should have had a lab making a much better game, like Contra.

This Week

I don't have anything actually Compsci related to write about. Tuesday we were just doing the same thing we were doing last week, which I really can't write another blog post about, because that would be stupid. Then, I was out on a field trip Thursday, so I don't have anything to say about what we did then. Instead, I'm going to write about that field trip. The two APES classes got to go out to the Lost Pines for the entire school day and plant baby pine trees in areas that had been severely burned during the fire there a while back. Overall, it was fun, but the hundreds of fire ant nests (seriously, every single tree stump had some fire ants next to it) were very annoying, and carrying around the 18 pound hunk of metal we were using to dig the holes to put the seedlings in got tiring. Overall, we planted 1572 baby pine trees, which means we planted the most out of any previous group, despite also being the smallest group.

OOP

OOP is really confusing me. Maybe its just because I wasn't paying quite as much attention as I should have been during the presentation, or maybe its just a dense topic but I don't really get it. I'm looking at the labs, and I get the point of what its asking, but I'm just not really understanding the implementation of the things in the slides in the labs. That's probably just me though, and most likely because of the aforementioned lapse in attention during the relevant presentation. As to NACLO, I'm thinking that I'll take it, but then again I thought I'd take it last year, and in the end something came up which prevented me from actually participating. So, I'll  probably sign up, but its still iffy as to whether or not I'll be able to take it.

Contest

That little contest that we had in class was fun. None of the problems were hard, and they were all pretty fun to figure out and complete with only minor errors and setbacks. More amusing, however, was the really strange mistakes that I saw people making. I'm not gonna name any names, but it was really odd watching people do a problem you did with one for loop and an if statement or two, and see them use several for loops and what looked like five or six while loops. I suppose that just illustrates the extremes differences in thought processes between people. I thought all of the problems were fairly straightforward, but I guess not everyone agreed with me.