Week 9: Start of CST 338

This is the ninth week of the CSUMB computer science program. 

This is the beginning of the Software Design course, which I have been somewhat struggling with. It has nothing to do with me not being able accomplish the tasks, as I have been dealing with family, financial, and living issues. In the end, I'm still pushing forward to learn and understand everything that has been provided in CST 338.

This week we were provided a way to practice and hone our skills on a programming language called Java, which was practiced through Coding Bat challenges. The steps I took to solve the problems and what happened are listed below:

Solving the Problem:

• In order to understand how to even start the problem, I read the description on what needs to be done, as it provides hints towards how the problem can be solved.
• I look into the topic that Java is going over, which provides examples or built-in methods that can resolve certain functions quicker, while also understanding how to program without those methods.
• If there is an example available, I would look into that example after implementing and or attempting the problem at least 3 - 4 times.

Planning:

• I look into what built-in methods are available.
• I look into data structures.
• I look into control structures.
• I look into how the Google Style, as to practice the implementation.

What Worked:

• Writing small functions that were simple and reusable for many problems.
• Testing each test one by one until every function worked correctly.
• Using built-in methods to implement code, while learning how to replace them without built-in methods.

What Didn't Work:

• Throwing code at the problem certainly didn't work, as certain problems throughout the practice left me stumped, thus I had no choice but to look into how this could be solved either through tutorials or examples online.
• I have often overthought on programming problems, which normally happens with any problem also.

Number of attempts needed to succeed:

• It took me about 3 - 7 attempts to solve most challenges.
• The problems that took 3 attempts were normally the easiest.
• The problems that took 7 attempts were the ones that needed extra material to solve.

This is the first week for this course, and I'm excited for what we are going to cover throughout.