CS373 Fall 2020: Sujoy Purkayastha
This is my third blog post for CS373!
What did you do this past week?
This past week, I worked on my Collatz project for my software engineering class (CS373). In addition to that, I’ve also been working on my second homework assignment for CS371, which is the iOS programming class at UT. Outside of school, I worked on my presentation and MVP for the TX Convergent incubator interview. I actually had the interview yesterday, and I’m just thankful that my demo didn’t crash!
What’s in your way?
Currently, I still feel like I am in summer break. It’s been difficult for me to be fully proactive and starting my assignments as soon as they are posted for my classes. I’m hoping that as the semester goes on, my time management will improve, and I can start my assignments earlier and complete them more efficiently (without being distracted by YouTube or social media).
What will you do next week?
Next week, specifically tomorrow, I will complete my Collatz assignment and submit it. I aim to go to office hours tomorrow as well to introduce myself to the graders. I do not have many assignments that are due next week, so I will focus my attention on applying to internships and preparing for interviews!
What was your experience of Collatz, the starter code, the makefile, its optimizations, and exceptions?
The first project was quite interesting. While implementing Collatz and its optimizations were easy, learning about the continuous integration (CI) process was a challenge. I have never used CI before, so it was difficult to understand its need. To be honest, I still haven’t internalized the benefits of CI as this first project was an individual one. I am sure that I will understand the benefits when I use CI for the semester project. The makefile itself was quite interesting, and I hope to develop one for the website project as well. Lastly, I am glad that I learned about exceptions as they are a great way to gracefully handle user error.
What made you happy this week?
I bought a huge box of ramen noodles this weekend, so I’ll be eating very well for the foreseeable future!
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
VS Code actually has a Docker extension, which is a very helpful feature to spin up Docker containers from a graphical user interface.
