CS371g Blog Post 2

What did you do this past week?

I’ve been working on a chess website with friends, going to this class, and playing games with friends. I also finished the series Kingdom on Netflix, which is about an ancient zombie outbreak in Korea among royal drama as to who should succeed the former king. It’s mostly been pretty uneventful due to the virus and all, so not much to say here.

What’s in your way?

We’re stuck on the chess site because none of us have too much back end experience, so managing the database and all is a bit confusing. On top of that, Collatz is coming up. Even though I’ve done it in Python for SWE, the new c++ features and figuring out how to get all the software working is a bit tedious. Also, not being able to go out and hang with friends is making me insane. It was fun to coop up and mess around on my computer for the first few months, but it’s starting to get pretty old pretty fast.

What will you do next week?

I’ll likely continue doing the same, working on the chess site and class assignments. I hope I can finish Money Heist soon and find more stuff to watch, since there seems to be nothing much to do otherwise.

What was your experience of assertions, unit tests, pointers, and references?

Assertions and unit tests were things I learned before, but forgot about. Pointers and references was interesting, as I already had an idea of how they work. However, the lectures were very clear and concise, and helped me cement the rules of pointers/references. C++ as a whole seems pretty intimidating, so I hope I can learn it well and remember everything. Thankfully, Downing’s notes are very well organized and easy to review.

How are you doing and holding up? What’s been most helpful for you in terms of support at this time?

I’m really bored, but honestly, the fact that that’s my only problem is a blessing. I think having my friends to still talk and play games with or watch shows with on Discord has been helping me pull through really well. My family’s really supportive too, and my mom cooks really nice meals. Honestly, life’s all good, just a bit uneventful.

What made you happy this week?

I watched my friend demolish someone in a DBFZ exhibition match.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

Microsoft VSCode (the editor, not the IDE) has a SSH extension that allows you to remain in the VSCode editor while SSH’d, which has been a godsend for me. Not having to constantly tab out to use a terminal and transfer my files back and forth, or use VIM/EMACS, has been extremely helpful.