Camila's learning journal

  Work with your fellow classmates and go through your solutions to the Markov assignment. Who did you work with? For this week I met with Stan, we worked together on reviewing each other's code, discussing about our approaches and takeaways. You can work with up to three people Just Stan and me for this week. you MUST work with at least one other person to get credit. Just Stan and me for this week. What was your strategy for solving the Markov assignment? Did you start writing code right away? Did you plan it out on paper?  I tried to create some sort of mental plan, something abstract after reading instructions. I just followed instructions and started writing code as it was instructed. I based myself on readme, then I compiled my code making sure I get no errors. What was THEIR strategy for solving the Markov assignment Same as mine. Stan based most of his work out of the readme, and the instructions. he did not form any mental plan because he did not see any need for it. ...

With whom did you work? I worked with Leonardo, my brother. We both completed the project individually, but helped each other by reviewing each other’s code and mostly talking through the logic. What was your strategy for solving the assignments? My strategy was to follow the instructions step by step and break everything down into pieces. I started by building the abstract base class, then worked on each subclass one at a time. I wrote the code and tested it. When I got stuck or needed to think through something, I called Leonardo to talk it out. Talking through the logic really helped me move forward when I was blocked (quite often). Did you start writing code right away? Did you plan it out on paper? I didn’t draw anything on paper, but I followed the UML diagram and instructions closely. I visualized the structure in my mind and then began coding based on it. What was THEIR strategy for solving the assignments? Leonardo had a similar approach. He followed the UML and worked through...

I worked with Stan and Ysabelle. We shared our code and gave each other feedback. Feedback I gave: Stan’s code was efficient. I suggested simplifying chooseWord() and organizing constructors better. Ysabelle’s code was readable with clear variable names. I recommended improving how she selects unused words. Feedback I received: Stan said my chooseWord() should return early if all words are used, and suggested using List<Character> for guessed letters. Ysabelle liked my comments and variable names, but noted I didn’t print the guessed word in displayGameState() and had some leftover TODOs. Trends: Everyone struggled with displayGameState() passing the test and leaving TODOs. Reflections: I’ll clean up comments and improve chooseWord() displayGameState() test was the hardest Tests work but could use better messages They cover most main features I’d add hints for each test I struggled with test formatting Stan struggled with the same test Fil...

 As I reflect on my week, I haven't spent as much time on my homework, which has been really frustrating.  My instructions for the week were " write a paragraph or two about what you worked on during week 1.  Think about what was hard, what went well, and how those lessons will influence your work in the future weeks." Last week was really stable. I had assignments, and I completed them. Although they were not extremely hard, they made me realize that I still need to relearn many things I had forgotten, so I appreciate the review. I still have to work on 2 more homework, the Pokémon one and the final shapes. I've made some progress, but I will finish it eventually.  Slightly unrelated to week one, but my best moment so far in taking this class was finishing lab 1. I was 88 -89% done with it, and I fell asleep at my desk by accident around 12:30 a.m. Soon after I woke up, I did the best thing possible: I started accepting every suggestion IntelliJ gave me to "bett...

Strangely enough, doing CodingBat problems was both challenging and easy for me. The first problems were easy, yet I spent a while on them. When I was doing the first substring problem I kept misspelling length for lenght, until I realized I had a typo.  It’s been a few years since I last practiced Java, and I normally use C++. Because of that, I had to search on Google for a lot of concepts like things like strings, lists, and maps. Now I know that I need more practice, not just in Java, but also in thinking through problems. Some questions were confusing, and I had to read them a lot of times. I tried to to think of a logical way to tackle it first, but I failed often, so I would write code and modify it until it worked.  One example is the xyzThere problem. The goal was to check if it  "xyz" appears in the string, but not if it’s right after a period "." . It took me many tries, but this code finally worked: public boolean xyzThere(String str) {     for (...