Just Another Day

Today we were taught more about Strings in class today and we also learned how to implement text files into Eclipse. I knew Java had a way to import text files and use them in a way, but it was nice to see another comparison between Java and MATLAB because I am currently using them both. I am starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with all my classes because I have three exams next week, the homework program due next Friday, and a big World Cultures assignment due next Friday. The best thing I can do is to just take everything one step at a time and try not to get ahead of myself because I will just stress myself out even more by doing that. I plan on working on the homework program this weekend and unlike two weekends ago, I will actually go to the learning center on Sunday evening to get some help because I want to understand what this program does and how exactly to go about writing it.

Its CS Tuesday!

After spending about two hours doing the CodeLab problems for today's lecture last night and getting them all correct I just knew that today was gonna be a good day. During the lecture today Dr. Poplawski talked about strings and went into more detail on what methods you could invoke to modify string variables. I followed up nicely by getting the quiz answer correct so it was a good start to the day! When I walked into the lab this evening I was a little afraid of what hard assignment would be thrown at us today. I looked at the lab assignment itself and was delighted to see that there were only four questions and they were actually pretty simple. A couple of them involved using ArrayLists which I very comfortable with using because I used them in my homework program. We also got assigned our fourth programming assignment in class today which looks somewhat similar to the last one and I plan on working on it this weekend.

Program Completed!

After hours of long and hard work I finally got my program to work. When I previously posted I only had the size and the getCommonTweets method to write which didn't seem like too much work initially. I started with the size method first because I thought it would be the easier of the two to write and I was right when I thought that because it literally only took me one line of code to correctly write the size method because I only needed to get the number of tweets for a given key. However, the getCommonTweets method posed some problems for me. It required me to think in a really weird way and I had to draw the problem out to be sure I wrote it correctly. I had to consult the Java API Documentation page several times because I knew that by using one of those methods that it would make writing the method easier. After that long and hard process I finally got the getCommonTweets method to work with all the test cases I put it against.

Lecture...wait..my program works!?!

Thursday's lecture was pretty straight forward because it talked a lot about applying methods and arrays into classes and object. Because of the lab quiz last Tuesday I studied hard on arrays and methods so it wasn't really a huge challenge. Later on in the evening came the highlight of my night. I had finished the size method of the program on Wednesday, but I had not tested it yet because I had not created my add method to see if the size method actually worked. After about three hours of work I got five of the other methods to work, but the size method and the getCommonTweets methods do not work. Fixing the size method does not sound like it will take too much time. However, the getCommonTweets method seems like it's going to be a pain to finish. I had eclipse fix some of my errors for me and I had to consult the API Documentation a bit, but if I get six of those methods done I will be satisfied.

Lab Quiz...Check!

So after a nice weekend with nice weather and whatnot it was time to get back to CS 1121. Although I have started the homework program somewhat, I was mostly concerned about the lab quiz that occurred this Tuesday. What I did was go through each lab question that we completed and commented the entire code to follow the entire logic flow. Since my lab was Tuesday night I had the first lab quiz. The lab quiz itself was surprisingly easy except for the last problem. On the third problem I kept getting errors because I made an infinite loop, but I looked at the code closer and determined that I had made a very silly mistake. The last problem involved a TreeMap which is not my strong suit. However, I was able to receive 4 out of the 10 points for the question because I got the method to do one of the things and ended up with 94 points overall on the quiz!

Yeah....about the homework program...

So it turns out that my laziness has gotten the best of me today because I did not start the program today. However, I did get lots of studying done for the lab quiz Tuesday evening. Since the quiz is worth 10% of our entire grade in the class I was more concerned with that. It's not that I didn't care to do the program, but I just needed to study because I had not done any studying prior to today and I can easily say that I got a lot done. What I did was go through each and every problem in lab 5 through 8 and commented each line of code so I fully understand the entire logic flow. Plus since I'm going over problems that relate to the content on the lab quiz, I expect that the problems will have a similar structure to the ones on the lab. I do not expect exact copies of the questions on the quiz, buy studying the problem will definitely help me prepare for the quiz.

More Class Stuff

In class on Thursday we talked more about classes. Specifically Dr. Poplawski discussed reference variable and how they are used within the context of a Java class. This material was very easy for me to understand because not only was I successfully able to complete all the CodeLab problems for this lecture, but this material was taught to us in a very slow manner so everyone would be able to understand. Our class has been working on object and classes for about two weeks now and I like the fact that we are spending this much time on objects because it gives everyone the opportunity to understand it. This weekend I plan on starting homework program #3 and utilizing the learning center. I will most likely make my way over to the learning center on Sunday night to have a coach help me if I need it, but I plan to get a good chunk of my program done this weekend.

Back to the grind

Coming into Tuesday after a relaxing spring break I felt pretty good about the material being covered. It is not very complex because we are going over one little thing at a time and talking in detail about them. For example, in class today Dr. Poplawski discussed constructors with us and after reading the section about constructors and doing the CodeLab it seemed pretty straight forward to me. However, the real difficulty that I experienced today was during my lab section when we worked with two-dimensional arrays. My partner and I struggled mightily with this week's lab because we both forgot most of the information regarding two-dimensional arrays, but we got help from the lab TAs and finished most of the problems. There is a lab quiz next week, but I'm not gonna worry too much about it because I plan on going through all the lab problems and comment the code so that I understand it.

Homework Program 3

As I await the third homework program assignment to open up I'm starting to go over all the rules for Maps and ArrayLists because I feel like this program is going to include those objects. By going over these it will make starting the homework program a little bit easier, but I highly doubt that I will be able to finish this program before spring break ends because I will not be able to access any sort of help from the learning center or lab TAs. There has not been any program where I have not needed any help and that is when I search for help. I really like how the learning center coaches help with the program because they don't necessarily just tell you how to write the program. The learning center coaches really do make me think and although it is a struggle to think about it, the coaches makes sure I understand the concept and understand the entire logic flow of the program.

Classes = Rice Krispies Recipe

Thursday's class was a pretty laid back lecture and Dr. Poplawski talked mostly about the distinction between classes and object. The class, as he put it, is like the rice krispies recipe while the object is like the rice krispie itself. A class is the description of what happens in the object and the object is the thing that the class is describing. Dr. Poplawski also went through a simple example of the application of the classes and object. He made the class in one java file and the object in another. It was a bit confusing at first as to why he did that, but after seeing the result and how the methods were implemented into the class, it made more sense to me. I imagine that the next homework program will have to do with maps and/or classes and methods. During spring break I will at least look at the homework program and attempt to at least start it.