CS373 Fall 2020: Jackson McClurg

Blog 6

1. What did you do this past week? This past week I spent a lot of time working on assignments for classes and still applying for internships. I also took some time out to spend with my family and have some fun as well.
2. What’s in your way? Right now my brain is going into information overload, as I am trying to learn a lot of different tools and features at the same time. Overall, that is not too bad of an obstacle, but it does require a lot of time spent, and often times it can feel like I am walking in circles and not getting anywhere.
3. What will you do next week? Next week I am going to learn more about SQL and creating a database and maintaining for our website, as well as work on integrating our API with our frontend so that we can get a working version running.
4. If you read it, what did you think of Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women? I did read it, and sadly I was really disappointed but not surprised. I took the Ethics in CS class over the summer, and a lot of the topics in that class opened my eyes to the realities of biases in tech and the workplace in general. It is terrible how the system treats minorities/women/POC. The fact that it has been going on for decades with little change is scary, and serious action needs to be taken now if there is going to progress.
5. What was your experience of iterators, reduce(), and tuple? (this question will vary, week to week) Iterators were pretty straightforward, I’ve used them quite often in other languages. reduce() took some getting used to and was a little more complicated to me, but after looking at it and practicing it with some code it began to make sense. Tuples also were pretty straightforward to me, in relation to lists and how they function differently.
6. What’s it like working in a group? (this question will vary, week to week) I enjoy working in groups, I like to play team sports and it kind of rolls over into working with a team. I think my team is great and that we’re going to be able to put together a cool site by the end of the semester!
7. What was your experience of the team contract? (this question will vary, week to week) The team contract went smoothly, we were able to set details easily and come to an agreement on how we would handle things. I think everybody is on the same page with how we stand as a team and how we are going to move forward.
8. What was your experience of the peer review? (this question will vary, week to week) This was also good, a class I took previously used the exact same system and format so it was familiar to me. I like the idea of being able to give/receive feedback from teammates in a constructive manner.
9. What made you happy this week? I am in Michigan right now with my family, and the trees here are turning colors and it’s just really pretty outside. I also went to an apple orchard this weekend and picked some really good apples so I am happy about that as well.
10. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week? My tip of the week is pretty simple but if you hit ctrl-shift (or cmd-shift) in a text editor anywhere in a line it will create a newline and move the cursor to it without altering the line you are on. It’s pretty useful sometimes.