Week 5: midterm midterm midterm

This week was tough one. Three of my courses, CSC148, CSC165 and MAT137, have set the midterms in this week.

CSC148 was the first one among the three courses above. At first, I was in panic preparing for it, because this is the first midterm of this course, and I have no idea about what kind of questions will I face to in the test.

Usually, I use past tests a lot when preparing for exams. However, in this course, the past papers are not so helpful, because the previous classes share a different coverage of Test 1 from us, and the categories of questions are quite different as well. Hopefully, I still know that the exam is to test how well do I understand the stuff taught in this course. Then I started to review on the course notes, Lecture slides, handouts, and of course, the lab materials. It was tough though, since I didn't get all the document well organized. Well, the test was not so hard as imagined.

After the test, we've got a lecture about queue. I found lots of my friends found it difficult to distinguish between queue and stack, but I am doing it well. Just like the name of these two data structures, queues are like the queues in Starbucks, while, the person in the front leave the queue after taking orders, and the costumers join the queue from the end. The stacks are like like a stack of cards on the table, while people can only pick or add cards from the top.

By the way, I found out that as a computer science student, Bahen Information Center is my second home for me. ;)

Something about week 4 of my CSC148 Journy: Assignment and recursion

Last week was a busy one. In week 4, the first assignment of CSC148 due, and this has taught me a lot.

First, I realized the difference between CSC148 and CSC108. CSC108 is just real basic fundamental, while 148 is about computer ‘science’. In this assignment, we were asked to design a program of a simple game, subtract square. The real difficulty is, we were required to design 5 classes, to become a program. This really helps me to understand and make use of what I’ve been learn in the CSC148 lectures.

From the assignment, I realized several things about the course. First, team work is really important. At the beginning of the project, my partners and I divided the work into parts, working alone, and tried to combine the separated fragments. Then we found it was totally impossible. This is because we have a different view on the assignment, and have our own design on the program. It became really hard for use to assemble the individual pieces. After several trials, we finally started to design the program together, and work on it together. Well, it worked after all.

Another thing is that I found the drop in center real useful and helpful. With the help of the TA, we became confident about our design, and the progress was finally pushed forward.

In lectures, I learnt a new stuff called recursion, which is a process that a program calls itself. Prof. Heap showed us how to deal with complex lists with recursion. It was not hard to understand, but I still need some time to get through it.  

Why geeks should write?

Why geeks should write?

First, I'd like to start this post with the definition of the word geek. What is a geek? Says some online sources, geek was supposed to be used to describe the ones who do not follow the mainstream, and is used to represent people who uses latest technology to do creative things. 

The common point between these two kinds of people is that they always come up with great ideas. A bunch of tech fans started to assemble separated PC components and sell, and they founded Dell. Two brothers believed human beings can fly and they eventually invented plane. However, what if their awesome ideas just popped up and vanished together with the thousands things they forget everyday. So,why should geeks write? Even Einstein needed a piece of paper to not down his ideas, why don't the geeks write? Writing helps geeks to record their idea, even it's just an ordinary one. Well, many little makes a mickle.

With the help of writing, geeks could not only note down their ideas, but also to publicize it in a efficient way. Writing is a really useful way to present ideas to others in a clear way. As a method to communicate, writing blogs can quickly share idea with other people. Also, the comment function of blog allows ideas from other people accumulated under each post. Some of those comments could be against the ideas posted, some may support, while others may give suggestions. Anyways, they give the blogger an opportunity to refine, or perfect their ideas, and finally make it something real, something innovative. That's why geeks should write? It's all about ideas.

hello world

This is the first blog post of my CSC148 SLOG.

I'm currently test the functionality of it.