Ty Trusty

Last Weekly Blog Post

2017-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

My experience

My experience in OOP was excellent. It’s a worthwhile experience and leaving it I feel that I have good grasp of OOP and C++. Professor Downing’s style is lot different than any other CS professors I’ve had. The teaching style and structure of the course are unique and clearly well thought out. C++ can be intimidating, but Downing explains each concept extremely clearly. Also on some particularly challenging concepts he has humorous analogies to help you understand things better.

The lectures are really engaging. Throughout the lectures, Professor Downing randomly calls on students and poses questions related to the material. At first this was nerve-wracking for me, but it got easier as the semester progressed. Like most people, I don’t speak up in class because I don’t want to make a fool of myself. The thing with OOP is that pretty much everyone makes a mistake at some point, so there’s little shame in being incorrect.

Tests

One unique thing about tests in OOP is that they’re done through Canvas and you take your laptop to the test. The best part is that there’s no waiting for your score because you get it back immediately after clicking submit. The only complication I had with the online exams is that my laptop is unreliable. For example, it likes to randomly crash when I move it. Having issues like this can create some anxiety because you’ll be in a constant worry during the exam. In my case, my laptop crashed exactly when the final exam started, which was awful since I had to sit for a couple minutes while it rebooted. So if you plan take this class, get any computer issues sorted out.

Projects

The projects are a lot like programming competition questions, but modified so that you have to apply some OOP concepts. The correctness portion of the assignment is done through hackerrank so you know if your code is correct before turning it in. For the other parts of the project, the instructions are specific enough to provide assurance that you’re doing things correctly. Because of this, there are few surprises on what score you’ll get and also the waiting period is pretty short.

For me the most time-consuming part of the projects was not the actual coding part. For each project, you go through a number of steps to set up your programming environment and you also need to write documentation and tests. These things can feel like chores, but they’ve made me a much better programmer. Looking back at my personal projects before taking this class, they’re a complete mess. But now, I’ve been able to use all the tools I used in these projects, which has made them much more organized. And as an added benefit, employers really liked it when I told them that I had experience with unit testing and continuous integration.

Quizzes

Quizzes were the most challenging part of the class for me. The content of the quizzes was often difficult, but fair. There would usually be one or two reading questions a week. Then the other questions would typically be ones where you analyze a snippet of code and determine the output. This was the source of the most difficulty because of the time limit on the quizzes. Although, the scariest part for me was the lack of a back button. My testing style is to answer every question as fast as possible, then go back to the beginning and fix the errors. This obviously doesn’t work for the quizzes, but fortunately I discovered this reality on the first quiz and was able to adjust my style.

Week of 24 Apr - 30 Apr

2017-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

Last week in OOP we learned more about handler classes and began talking about unique_ptr and share_ptr classes. I have used these classes in the past so it’s great to actually understand what’s going on behind the scenes when you use them. We had our last quiz on Wednesday, so all I’ve got left is the final exam. For the quizzes, I had some periods of poor performance throughout the semester, but overall I’m content with my grade.

What’s in your way?

This week is my finals week. I’ve got an essay due and three final exams. I began studying fairly early so I am not too worried about being prepared, but it will still be a challenge. For OOP, I started working on my note page this weekend. I feel like this has been the best way to prepare since it’s forced me to review all the notes, exercises, and quizzes really in-depth. Another thing I have to do next week is a project presentation in my anthropology-related class. I’ve talked in front of groups a number of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever exceeded 10 minutes. I’m not too thrilled with public speaking, but this will be great practice.

What will you do next week?

Study study study. All my finals are this Thursday so that leaves Monday-Wednesday of complete studying. One problem I have is that I’ll sometimes force myself to keep working until I am satisfied with my studying, which entails working late into the night. Being well-rested is crucial, so I can’t allow myself to stay up any later than 3 a.m. This time still sounds ridiculous, but if I didn’t regulate my schedule I would end up staying up to almost 6 a.m. and obliterating my sleep schedule.

What’s my experience of the class?

Class has continued to be great. The lectures are always informative and I feel like I’m learning for the entire 50 minute duration. This class has made a great impression upon me and I definitely plan to take SWE in the future.

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

My pick of the week is this interesting article called “How I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography then got into more trouble”. If you’re looking to take a quick break, I would recommend this article as its short and pretty amusing.

Week of 17 Apr - 23 Apr

2017-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

My partner and I finished up the Life project for OOP. We were mostly done last Sunday, so this was a stress-free and quick process. Another thing I did was attend Earth Hack over the weekend. This was a 36 (!) hour event with a focus on creating a project related to the environment. My group and I ended up doing moderately well by placing top 7 out of 80 or so groups. This event was a ton of fun and I actually preferred the 36-hour structure because it provided the opportunity to create a more fleshed out product. Also, one thing that continues to surprise me is how little sleep people can operate on with time constraints. I got a miserable total of ~6 hours of sleep during the event and a few of my group members were about the same, but we remained productive. At the time I’m writing this, I’ve just gotten back in Austin and I cannot wait to get some real sleep.

What’s in your way?

All three of my finals are on May 4th which is approaching way too quickly. The main obstacle in my way right now is a final essay for an anthropology-related class. I need to get this out of the way because every minute spent on this essay is one I could’ve used for studying for finals. I plan to get the paper finished on Monday, which will be a challenge considering I need 12 pages and I’ve only got 4 right now.

Also, another thing in my way is registration. I finally get to register for classes on Monday. I’m a bit frustrated because earlier in the semester I took a credit-by-exam test and earned 10 hours. This increased my degree progression, which should’ve improved my registration time. However, I’ve learned that registration times are calculated at the beginning of the semester and there is no way to change the time at a later date. This has left me worried about registering for my desired classes on time.

What will you do next week?

As I mentioned, I am registering for classes on Monday. Even with the registration difficulties, I’m fortunate that most classes aren’t closed yet. Right now I plan to take Algorithms, Computer Graphics, and Artificial Intelligence if possible. In addition to registering, I am going to study for all of my finals and finish up the essay that’s in my way.

What’s my experience of the class?

My experience has been the same as previous weeks (great). The quizzes are challenging, but they continue to be fair and closely linked to the previous classes’ material. That being said, I still manage to make some really stupid mistakes on them. Relative to the projects and tests (even though I’ve only taken one test), the quizzes remain the hardest part about the class for me. This is probably a good thing because I would much rather mess up a few times on quizzes considering they’re just worth 15% of the grade.

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

My pick-of-the-week is a free e-book called the Ph.D. Grind. This book is a memoir over the experience of earning a PhD. The author candidly describes the entire process of earning a PhD from general lifestyle to the politics of getting a paper published. It’s an easy read with just over 100 pages. Last week I started this book and I’ve already almost finished just from reading during brief downtimes. What I’ve enjoyed the most about this book is that it’s not trying to convince you to either pursue or avoid a PhD. It’s just trying to give a sense of perspective on what the life of a PhD student is like. Before this, most accounts I’d read were either extremely positive or bitter and say that a PhD is complete hell.

Week of 10 Apr - 16 Apr

2017-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

Last week I got started on the last OOP project. This project is a simple cell automata simulation and is much like the Darwin project. The main difference between the Life project and Darwin is that in Life we have to use some new concepts like abstract classes and inheritance. We talked about inheritance last Wednesday and Friday, so it was easy to apply this in the project. And because my partner and I spent the first work session going through the design, the implementation process was quick.

What’s in your way?

Since my partner and I are about done with the Life project, the main thing in my way right now are the quizzes. Unfortunately, I did poorly on last week’s quizzes, so I hope I can do better this week. Also, the end of the year is approaching quickly and I need to get to start preparing for exams. I have three finals on May 4th which is worrying, so I’m not sure how I will be able to effectively manage my time. I will likely have to start preparing sometime this week.

What will you do next week?

On Monday I plan to get all of the OOP project finished up. I still need to do a few small things like Doxygen and the git log. Besides this, I intend to study a good amount before each quiz. Outside of OOP, I’ve got a final paper to write in my writing flag course, which I would like to finish early.

What’s my experience of the class?

The projects have been a great experience. The guidelines are clear on what is expected, and any issues are addressed quickly. I appreciate Eric posting some example acceptance tests to help us test our code. At the beginning of projects, there aren’t any tests on the public test repo so debugging and optimizing can be difficult. These tests helped a bunch. Also, I like using Hackerrank to test the correctness and efficiency of our code. It removes alot of the anxiety associated with turning in projects because you know if your code is correct when you turn it in.

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

My pick of the week is to learn regex. Even though I’ve constantly seen it, I didn’t make an effort to learn it until last week. Learning it is super helpful whenever your doing any sort of pattern matching, such as searching and replacing in a text editor. I found the website https://regexone.com/ to be a great tutorial. It starts at the complete basics and gradually gets more complex. Also, the site http://regexr.com/ is a really good site for creating and testing regex expressions.

Week of 3 Apr - 9 Apr

2017-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

Last week I mostly spent my time finishing up the Darwin project for OOP. I’m glad my partner and I spent a lot of time planning the design as it made implementation extremely easy. As a result, things went smoothly and I had a decent amount of time to review my project before the deadline. Although, one thing I had difficulty with was the UML, so there’s a chance I will lose points for that portion.

This weekend I had a ton of fun working on a new project. Miraculously, the stars aligned and I had a (mostly) free weekend, so I wanted to work on something moderately big. In last week’s blog, I posted an article about the programming language pipeline, which got me interested in making my own language. My plan was to make a language that was extremely unintuitive, difficult to code, and difficult to read. I therefore decided to work on a language where all expressions looked like ASCII emoticons.

So, I started off looking at all the tools like Flex, Bison, and LLVM, but there was way too much information to digest. I figured it would be easier to do the tokenization and parsing myself (and it was). My language (github link) pipeline is lexing (read tokens), parsing (build Abstract syntax tree), then transpiling (convert my language to c code). Given I’ve only worked on it for two days now, not much is implemented. However, I implemented basic integer initialization and comments.

Here’s an example of what I have working:

(#_#)              this is a comment
(#_#)--*           this is a multi-line comment *--(#_#) 
o \(^-^)/ 5  (#_#) this is assignment

The above code produces the c code: int o = 5;

What’s in your way?

Right now the quizzes are the main thing in my way since I’ve been making some stupid mistakes on them lately. For example, on last Monday’s quiz I missed a question asking for the signature of one of vector’s constructors, which should’ve been a freebie. It’s approaching the end of the quizzes so I’m starting to slack. But for this week, I’m going to make sure I’m much more prepared.

What will you do next week?

I’m looking forward to working on the next project in OOP. Starting on the Darwin project early gave me plenty of time to relax and enjoy the process, so I plan to do this for the Life project too. Outside of OOP, I also need to do a programming assignment for Intro to Computer Security.

What’s my experience of the class?

Besides my recent hiccups in the quizzes, class has been great. I’ve really enjoyed learning about the Vector class implementation. I hope we get the chance to learn about abstract classes and the virtual keyword because when I was working on my personal project, I was struggling with these concepts.

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

My pick of the week is this stackoverflow post explaining the new features in C++17.

Week of 27 Mar - 02 April

2017-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

Last week we were introduced to the next oop project called Darwin. This project places a much greater emphasis on Object Oriented Design, which has made it much more fun and challenging. Another thing I did last week was attend a tech talk with Atlassian. During the talk they went into specific details on a performance issue with their product Hipchat. They described the process of how they discovered the source of their problem and the steps they took to solve it. The great detail they went into made the talk really interesting.

Also, today I attended Hack-MISA which was a 12 hour hackathon hosted by UT’s Management Information Systems Association. I along with Jake Heald (also in OOP) and three others developed a website to show whether a politician’s voting history was possibly influenced by donors. The project displays a voting record and compares the subject matter with the politician’s donors’ industry to see if there is a relation.

What’s in your way?

Not much is in my way since all my remaining midterms are near the end of the semester. In OOP, I do have the Darwin project to do, but things have going well so I’m not too concerned. The “no getters and setters” portion of the project represented a challenge, but my partner and I were able to account for this by spending our first few work sessions planning the design.

What will you do next week?

Next week I will be finishing the Darwin project. My groupmember and I have finished most of the design, which leaves unit tests, documentation, and other various requirements. Our code is still not passing all of the hackerranks so we will also need to get that sorted out as well.

What’s my experience of the class?

Class has been great. We’ve been discussing vectors in the past few class sessions. Initially, Downing introduced us to an naive implementation of the vector class and we have been going over ways to improve upon the dumb vector class. This has been great as we’ve been clearly shown the differences between poor and good design. Also the exercises where we attempt to implement components of the vector class have been particularly engaging.

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

My pick of the week is this blog about the programming language pipeline. The author describes the process of making your own programming language. The explanations are easy to understand and after reading it I’m pretty interested in trying to make my own basic language.

Week of 20 Mar - 26 Mar

2017-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

I finished up the allocator project. Things went smoothly so there wasn’t any pressure to get things done before the deadline. Outside of OOP I took a test for language credit in Chinese. I was nervous about this since I have been learning independently for almost a year and I had yet to be tested in my ability. Fortunately, things ended up going well and I got enough credit to fulfill my degree requirement.

What’s in your way?

I have a decent amount of work in my other courses so that’s the main thing in my way. In OOP, the next test is still over a month away, which makes the next projects and quizzes the main thing I am concerned about. With OOP and my other classes, it will be a challenge to stay on top of the OOP reading and class content this week. But looking at these things in a positive light, all this can be seen as a good exercise in my time management skills.

What will you do next week?

I would like to get started on the project next week. I believe we will begin discussion of the project this Monday so that will give me a chance to get a head start. Besides OOP I have a test and essay in my other courses, which will use all of my time until Tuesday.

What’s my experience of the class?

My experience of this class has been great. I haven’t been doing that well on some of my previous quizzes, but the content of the class has remained interesting. I am glad that Downing has provided a decent chunk of extra credit opportunities to supplement my grade. For instance, this Monday there is a talk I can attend to get 5 extra points.

I am really looking forward to next week classes as we will be learning more on how vectors are implemented. Last class in OOP we had to do an exercise where we had to implement a basic version of the vector class. Sometimes sitting and listening can get dull, so I’m glad Downing makes us do exercises where we attempt to implement what we’re learning. This is definitely my favorite thing about OOP right now. Also, I feel like these exercises are helpful in preparing for the upcoming test.

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

My pick of the week is the site colormind.io where the creator used machine learning to generate color palettes that abide by color theory.

Week of 5 Mar - 12 Mar

2017-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

In OOP, we were introduced to the next project – the Allocator project. This project seems more challenging than Voting and Collatz, so I’m really looking forward to working on it. Outside of OOP, I had a midterm in intro to computer security, which went well.

What’s in your way?

Not a whole lot. Because the next OOP test is quite a ways away, I only have to worry about the next project and the quizzes. I’ve finally finished my first set of midterms so these next few weeks should be more easy-going. One thing I am a bit concerned about is an upcoming credit-by-exam in Chinese that I am taking. I’ve been learning it on my own for almost a year now for fun, but I figured I might as well try to get some college credit out of it. This test is the Tuesday after the break, which gives me a whole class-free week to prepare.

What will you do next week?

It’s Spring Break, so I’m mostly going to relax. I plan on getting most of the next OOP project done. Thankfully, we spent a good amount of time in class going over the project, which makes me fairly confident that it won’t be too difficult.

What’s my experience of the class?

My experience of this class has been great. The daily quizzes aren’t fun, but the lectures and projects have been great. In the coming lectures, I hope we will start to discuss more about OOP principles. Right now the content of the class has mostly focused on the intricacies of C++. This is understandable because I feel like we need a solid grasp of the language before we can take advantage of its full capabilites.

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

My tip of the week would be to learn some android development. I would recommend going through Google’s android training lessons to learn some of the basics. You can also try out the Android Udacity course if you’d like a more structured approach. Personally what worked for me is to think of a basic app to build, then learn along the way. Whenever I don’t know something, I read Stackoverflow and the developer documentation. While this is unorganized, I like this approach as you immediately apply what you learn.

Week of 27 Feb - 4 Mar

2017-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

During the week I spent most of my time preparing for the OOP test. Fortunately the test went well so I’m less pressured to do well on every quiz (not that I will stop trying). This weekend I went to Hack UT-Dallas. I worked with Jake Heald, Alfred Zhong, and Eric Lee. We created an app that connects phones with a user’s pc through bluetooth. With the phone, we send data over bluetooth that is translated to keyboard controls for video games. It collects data through button presses, touchscreen movement, and sensors. Most of my work was on the mobile side where I worked on the bluetooth, UI, and other challenges. Although android was very much my comfort zone, I’d never messed with sensors or bluetooth before the event so it was an excellent learning experience.

What’s in your way?

This week is a bit lighter than last, but I have another test to worry about. The test is in CS 361 (Intro to Computer Security), and I think I should be able to prepare adequately. In addition to this class, I also have an anthropology-related writing flag course that has been using up a lot of my time. There are many weekly readings and associated assignments. For instance, last week I had to read a book (~200 pages) and turn in an essay (4 pages). However, compared to a CS class like OOP, I still consider OOP far more difficult even though they both consume a large amount of my time.

What will you do next week?

In OOP, I will make sure to stay on top of the content so I am ready for the quizzes. Most of this next week I will be preparing for my computer security test. Also, I need to start thinking about the next project, which I hope we talk about in class.

What’s my experience of the class?

My experience has been really great so far. I feel that the first test was quite fair. Prior to the test, I was worried about the potential reading questions. While I did all of the readings, some of them are particularly information-dense, so it’s difficult to recall specific facts. Fortunately, Downing’s test just ensured that we had a good grasp of the key concepts from the readings. I also like that Downing made a Piazza post for students to share test notes and practice questions. Jake and I made a google docs and many people ended up helping us with the notes. This was great because people would suggest additions, deletions, and correct our mistakes.

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

My tip-of-the-week is to particpate in a hackathon. Hack UTD was my first hackathon and it was a really memorable experience. It was fun to work with new technologies, and learn from my group members with different skillsets.

Week of 20 Feb - 26 Feb

2017-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

What did you do this past week?

Last week we learned about classes in OOP, so I feel like we’ve hit the big checkpoint in the class. And learning all the nuances of C++ constructors was a bit challenging, but I can see how they afford a lot of control.

What’s in your way?

This week I’ve got two tests to worry about. On Tuesday I have a statistics test and Thursday is the first OOP test. I’ve never had a test where I’ve had to type code, so this is a completely new experience. I’m nervous, but this format seems like it will be a great way to test my understanding. Also, if the coding questions are anything like the exercises we did in class, I think I will be prepared. In addition to the tests, I’ve also got an essay to do for another class, but I’ve made sure to get most of that finished already.

What will you do next week?

As I mentioned I’ve got the two tests this week so preparing for those will occupy most of my time. My plan for the OOP test is to go through all the notes, examples, and exercises from class. Also on Saturday I will be going the UT Dallas Hackathon. This will be the first hackathon I’ve participated in, so I’m sure it’ll be a whole lot of fun.

What’s my experience of the class?

My experience of this class has been about the same. The lectures last week were great, and it’s nice to start learning about classes in C++. One interesting thing about this class is that even though it’s based around C++, Downing has showed me how little I know Java. For instance, in class we learned about visibility modifiers (private, public, etc.) and that in C++ objects from the same class can access each other’s private variables. To my surprise, this is possible in Java too.

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

My pick of the week is the recent news from google about the discovery of the first SHA-1 collision. This means that a form of attack may be performed to craft a file that is hashed to the same value as another and thus forging that file’s digital signature. While SHA-1 has long been considered insecure, this research has proven a practical approach to generating a collision.