Blog Post

I'm running out of things to talk about in these things. I guess we might have just taken too long on this recent unit. Either I finished way too early and the fact that I haven't done anything but help other people out lately is my fault, or everyone else is moving really slowly. I suppose its better this, with me finishing early and running out of stuff to do is better than me turning in everything late, but all the same I'm still glad we're moving on to something new soon.

Reading Reflections

I think they need to be a bit shorter. Not a whole lot shorter, but a bit shorter. Whenever I'm writing them, I'll sometimes find myself having to really search for topics of reflection in order to make it long enough. That's not true for all of them, for some I find I have more than enough to say, but I still find myself reaching for ideas enough that I think its a bit of a problem. Maybe instead one and a half pages instead of two pages double spaced, I don't know, but I still think I would have an easier staying topical during them if I didn't have to write quite as much on them.

Strings

These string indexes are getting on my nerves. The issue is, I always forget that the indexes start at zero, as opposed to one. This means that I'll write out a perfectly nice piece of code, double check for errors, run it, and then have to go back and shift everything back one so it'll work. Then, when I'm counting from the back instead of the front, it starts at negative one, instead of negative zero, so that messes me up again. If only it would start at one like counting does.

Finch

I don't get why the finch can do some of the things it can do. I mean, the moving around and the changing colors on command I can get, that makes sense. But why does it have a news, and an earthquake feed? I don't see why they'd feel the need to combine them like that. I guess it makes as much sense as anywhere else you would put it, but it still feels pretty random.

Project 2

Just finished up Project 2, and I have to say that that was really frustrating. It wasn't project's fault, it was mine, but it was really frustrating all the same. It turns out that I had accidentally misspelled one of the names of my variables, and so it wasn't getting used at a key point in the function. This meant that it would spit out the wrong numbers again and again and again, and since the typo was so minor I couldn't see it. I spent forever poring over that code trying to find what was wrong, and it turned out that I had just switched two letters. I know it wouldn't be very practical, but sometimes I wish that python had a spellchecker.

Coding Bat

I'm going back through and completing all the blogs posts that I keep forgetting to post, so forgive me if this is all a bit dated. Anyways, on to the blog posts.
I like Coding Bat. The problems are kind of simplistic, sure, but they're good at teaching concepts, like strings, that I hadn't gotten into before it, and the problems can also be fun to solve. Not to mention the extra credit on assignments, I rather like that part too. So, if some of the things we cover in the future are also on coding bat, then I for one wouldn't mind doing some more on it.

Project 1

Well, the first project is now officially done. I'm not sure how much I liked it, but it was overall pretty good. I mean, I understand the need for a particular rubric in order to make sure people are solving the problem in the right way, but I'm just not quite sure how I like having a specific rubric like that. Its probably just that I've gotten used to the Lab style of grading, but it still kind of bothered me.