What did you like the least about the class?

I don’t have any major issues with the class.

What did you like the most about the class?

I enjoyed the lectures the most. Professor Downing is one of the best professors that I’ve had at UT.

What’s the most significant thing you learned?

The most significant thing that I have learned in this class is regex. It’s a subject that has confused more forever. I’m glad that we covered it in class.

How many hours a week did you spend coding/debugging/testing for this class?

I spent about 4 to 5 hours coding in this class

How many hours a week did you spend reading/studying for this class?

I spent about 1 hour reading for this class.

How many lines of code do you think you wrote?

I wrote about 500 line of code for the website. I don’t know many more lines the test and in class assignments would add

What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?

The most useful tool that learned was flask.

What’s the most useful Web dev tool that your group used that was not required?

The most useful Web dev tool that we used was SQL Alchemy.

If you could change one thing about the course, what would it be?

I would add a few more regex lessons. We had to cover a lot it only a few days.

What did you do this past week?

This past week was very stressful. I’ve been working nonstop since the break ended. My Chemistry II professor poorly planned out our end of semester schedule. We had to complete eight learning exercises and three homework assignments this week. I’ve had something due for Chemistry every day this week. Outside of Chemistry, I wrote a six-paged Usability Test Plan for my UX class. Additionally, my SWE group finished up the final phase of our project. The website turned out much better than I ever thought that it would be. My group was great, and we managed to avoid major problems throughout this whole ordeal.

What’s in your way?

It’s the end of the semester and I have so much stuff to do. More than 20% of my grade for each of my classes will be determined in the next eight days.

What will you do next week?

My Wednesday this week will be crazy. My SWE group will present our website Wednesday morning. I have to present my final Creative Coding assignment an hour later. Then, my fourth Chemistry II exam is that night. I have a Chemistry Test on Wednesday. On top of all of that, I have to complete a CFT for Intro to Security and I have an exam in my UX class on Thursday.

If you went, what did you think of the talk by Google? (this question will vary, week to week)

I did attend the Google talk. I have to admit that calling it a talk by Google is fairly misleading. Google was only mention a few times throughout the event, but I enjoyed it this way. Both individuals were in our exact position about a decade ago. Both have had incredible journeys since their time at UT. It was refreshing to hear.

What was your experience of the refactoring topics? (this question will vary, week to week)

The refactoring lessons were interesting. I was asked to do similar refactoring during the summer. I feel as though some of the smaller refactoring HackerRanks could have been combined for the sake of saving time. Some of them only took less than 5 minutes to complete, but getting set up and then discussing it afterward took 15 to 20 minutes of class time.

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

If you’re interested in learning more about refactoring, Martin Fowler (the other of the refactoring book that we covered in class) released the second edition of his Refactoring book over the Thanksgiving break.

What did you do this past week?

I didn’t return from San Francisco until Tuesday morning. In addition to catching up on all the work that I missed over the past week, I three major assignments due on Tuesday. I had to turn in my Intro to Security paper, which my group happened to finish before I left. A few hours later, my UX group presented our heuristic evaluation to the class. Then, the next SWE phase was due later that night. I attended the 2^nd annual DivDay on Saturday. It was even better than the first one. I also started to work on the ABCS 2018-2019 t-shirts. I have verbally accepted my job offer! I might have free time at some point in the future!

What’s in your way?

Due to the abundance of interviews and conference trips that I’ve had over the course of the semester, I have missed 7 quizzes so far. I’m only 3 quizzes away from losing a letter grade in the class with a little bit less than a month left in the semester. Thankfully, I’m done traveling for the semester. It’s still scary to imagine that 3 days of above average traffic could end up making a huge difference in my final grade.

What will you do next week?

Next week is Thanksgiving! Unfortunately, I have a bunch of stuff to do. I have three projects due as soon as we get back from the break! Additionally, I’ll be a groomsman in one of my best friend’s upcoming wedding. A lot of my time will be spent getting the tuxedo situation and various other aspects of the wedding figured out.

What was your experience of Project #4? (this question will vary, week to week)

Working on project 4 was tough. I couldn’t meet with my team in person due to my being in San Francisco at the time. With conference activities occupying most of the day, I could only work at night. Somehow my team and I were able to still communicate well enough for us to complete this phase of the project. The work that had to be done during this phase what easy in comparison to trying to communicate during those days that I was gone.

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

My pick-of-the-week this week is this cool little Python module called Doodle Master (https://github.com/karanchahal/DoodleMaster). It uses AI to translate UI mockups into actual code. It currently supports TextViews, Headers, ImageViews, and Buttons.

What did you do this past week?

It’s been a crazy week, in both positive and negative way. I had my third Chemistry Exam on Wednesday. It was terrible. The class average was so bad that the professor decided to make each question count as one point less than it should have been. I ended up scoring 10 points above the class average, but it wasn’t fun. On Thursday, I attempted to fly out to San Francisco for AfroTech. I had a connecting flight. My first flight got delayed to the point that I would have missed my connecting flight. I managed to get switched on a flight to Houston minutes before it took off. From Houston, I flew to San Francisco. I reached my hotel at 3 AM CST. The front desk informed me that the CS department booked my hotel room but forgot to pay for it. The hotel let me pay for an incidental fee to keep my reservation while the department figures out the payment issue. By the time that I arrived in California, the northern California fires had been raging on for quite some time. The air quality in San Francisco was terrible. Many residents were wearing a gas mask while walking around outside. Afrotech made it all worth it though. I had the opportunity to meet so many amazing people while there. I attend talks given by individuals ranging from Common to Daymond John.

What’s in your way?

I’ve missed three days of class due to me attending Afrotech. Catching up on all the work that I missed is going to be miserable.

What will you do next week?

Next week, I will finish up this phase of the SWE project. I also have to do a present in my UX class.

What was your experience in learning SQL? (this question will vary, week to week)

Prior to this class, I had already taken Data Management. I’m familiar with SQL, but I have still learned a lot. We did not cover subjects like “like” and “in” in my data management class.

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

My pick-of-the-week for this week is this interesting article about whether or not you should use www of not for your website (oesmyrepworkfor.me). The state that excluding www is prettier, but it results in cooking being shared to all subdomains, which negatively impacts performance. The author proclaims that using www. Is better in terms of security and performance.

What did you do this past week?

On Tuesday, I had an onsite interview. It went well. My group finally had the opportunity to do our Intro to Security presentation on Thursday. I also presented my Creative Coding project on Friday.

What’s in your way?

I must miss two days of class over the next eight days. Hopefully, I don’t fall behind in any of my classes.

What will you do next week?

My third Chemistry II exam is on Wednesday. Admittedly, I haven’t studied that much for it yet. I plan on jumping into the material tomorrow. I’ll be flying out to San Francisco on Thursday. The department is sending several of us ABCS officers to the AfroTech Conference. I’m super excited to be able to attend the conference this year. Before leaving for the conference I need to take care of my school work for the week. I’ll need to work with my security group to finish our paper. I also need to prepare my UX presentation.

What was your experience of Project #3?

There was a lot to do for this phase of the project. Admittedly, we waited until after the exam to really start working on our project. I’m doing backend for my project. A lot of what I did was related to the data for our website. We ran into quite a few problems scaping our data. Some of the APIs had qps limits that made us have to add sleep statements into our scrappers. Some of our models required queries to multiple APIs to get all of the relevant information. One of the APIs that we used return HTML rather than JSON data. We had to parse data from this API differently. Additionally, an API contained duplicate data. We had to add logic to account for this. Thankfully, creating our API was straightforward. I don’t have any JavaScript experience, so I was somewhat concerned with creating the Postman test. The test snippets that Postman provides were incredibly helpful.

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

My pick-of-the-week this week is dark-selfhosted. It’s a tool for self-hosting email, DNS, XMPP chat, and some websites using OpenBSD.

What did you do this past week?

I had an interview on Monday. It went well and I have an onsite with that company. I’ve started to work on my next Creative Coding project. The rest of my week has been spent working on the SWE project. We’ve been making steady progress. Hopefully, we can avoid having to work right up to the deadline.

What’s in your way?

I started to fill ill last Friday. I recovered enough to allow me to be able to attend class, but I’m still not feeling 100%. Hopefully, I can get over whatever I had soon.

What will you do next week?

Next week, I have two interviews on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the next phase of the SWE project is due on the same day. I’ll start writing my security project this next week. Registration starts next week. I have a good idea of what I want to take, but I need to finalize my schedule. I’ll be at the AfroTech conference from November 8^th to November 11th. I need to speak to my professor about missing class.

What did you think of the talk by Dr. Rich and Dr. Cline? (this question will vary, week to week)

I really enjoyed the talk. I’ve been wanting to take the Contemporary Issues in Computer Science course and this talk cemented the idea that I need to take this course before I graduate.

If you went, what did you think of the talk by Atlassian? (this question will vary, week to week)

I actually managed to make it out to this talk. I really enjoyed it. It was very different from your typical tech talk. We all know that Computer Science is an extremely volatile field, but we rarely talk about the effects of the field being so volatile. Having someone who has been in the industry for decades talk about the transformations that the industry has seen was interesting. Plus, the fact that they were able to speak on their experience working on a failed project and how they dealt with the termination of the project was interesting. People tend to focus on the successes, but we can learn just as much (or more) from failure.

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

My pick-of-the-week for this week is this article (https://www.reaktor.com/blog/fear-trust-and-javascript/) about types and functional programming in JavaScript. The author list several examples where the combination of these concepts fails in JavaScript.

What did you do this past week?

This past week was crazy. I presented my Creative Coding protect on Monday. Later that same day, I took the SWE exam. ABCS hosted an event with Quora on Tuesday. It went well. I had my second Chemistry exam on Wednesday. I couldn’t find my calculator on the day of the exam. I had to go to five different stores to find a new one. Thankfully, the exam wasn’t bad. I did well above the class average. I had a UX exam on Thursday. After my exam, I met up with my security group and completed our presentation. I had a virtual interview on Friday. Then, I met up with my SWE group to work on this phase of the project.

What’s in your way?

This terrible week had an equally terrible conclusion. I woke up sick on Saturday. I felt a little better on Sunday, but I’m still not 100%. Hopefully, it won’t slow me down too much.

What will you do next week?

Next week, I will continue to work on this phase of the SWE project. I have another interview on Monday. Then, my security presentation.

What was your experience of Test #1 (the problems, the time, HackerRank)?

The test wasn’t bad. It was very similar to the first OOP test that we had last semester. Once you figured out the trick to iterate through the individual digits everything else was straightforward. I finished in about half of the allotted time, although it likely would have taken me longer had I not seen the problem before. I have not problems with HackerRank as a testing platform.

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

My tip-of-the-week this week is this article covering the difficulties of making modern websites and web apps accessible. The addresses the Internet’s transition from pure HTML to various form of rich context (animation, games, etc.). The author explains that it is often trivial to explain the types of content in an accessible manner, but there is currently a lack of APIs that make assist the programmer in making these forms of content accessible.

What did you do this past week?

I had my Airbnb virtual interview on Tuesday. It turned out to be the worst interviewing experience that I’ve ever had. Both interviews were to be completed through CoderPad. During my first interview, CoderPad’s video chat wasn’t working. The interviewer and I spent the first ten minutes of my interview trying to resolve the issue before giving and falling back to our cell phones. CoderPad’s video chat worked during my second interview. I made it about halfway through my interview and then everything fell apart. CoderPad’s online compiler stopped working. The interviewer and I tried everything to get it working again, but I was forced to continue with my interview without the ability to run anything. It amazes me how much managed to go wrong in the span of an hour and a half. Thankfully, the phone interview that I had on Friday went flawlessly. Outside of my interviews, I had an exam in Intro to Security and made a particle field-based audio visualizer for my Creative Coding Class.

What’s in your way?

I have a lot to do next week. It’s going to difficult to partition my time between all the task that I need to accomplish.

What will you do next week?

Next week is going to be terrible. In addition to the SWE exam, I have a project due on Monday. ABCS is hosting an event with Quora on Tuesday. My second Chemistry exam is Wednesday. I have an exam in my UX class on Thursday and ABC is hosting an event with State Street. Lastly, I have another CoderPad interview on Friday and ABC is having a social on the same day.

What was your experience of learning the basics of Python?

I have been using Python for a while but have still learned a lot of new things about the language. What we’ve gone over is far from the basics. Prior to this class, I hadn’t really investigated how containers and integrators work. I always wondered why certain functions, map, needed to have their results cast to a container before I could use them. I’m looking forward to learning even more and furthering my Python proficiency.

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

We recently covered the uses of asterisks in Python in class. I found a blog post that covers the topic well. It’s a nice way to review the topic prior to Monday’s exam.

What did you do this past week?

I flew to the Bay Area on Wednesday afternoon for my Google interview. I finally broke my SFO curse. Prior to this trip, every time to or from SFO has been delayed. Since I had to miss class on Thursday, I spent a lot of time working ahead earlier in the week. I managed to not fall behind too much.

What’s in your way?

As of right now, sleep is in my way. I returned to Austin at 5:40 in the morning on Friday. I didn’t sleep much during the flight. I have no idea how I both managed to make it to class on time and not fall asleep during class. I don’t recommend red-eye flights on days that you have class.

What will you do next week?

I have an exam in Intro to Security next week. My UX professor assigned a project to the class while I was away. I need to figure out what that project involves and somehow join a group. I have a remote interview with AirBnb next week. I could potentially have two more interviews in addition that one. I plan on starting phase 3 of our project next week. I’d like to have most of our scrapping done by the end of the week.

What was your experience of Project #2?

As someone who’s working primarily on the backend, Project #2 went pretty smoothly. We did have a little bit of trouble getting our source APIs. One of the three original APIS that we found got absorbed into a different API. It took a while to find a suitable replacement. Thankfully, we started early. Most of what I had to do was related to the API documentation. The real backend in work will start in the next phase of the project. My amazing teammates got the static site up and running without much trouble.

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

My pick-of-the-week is about this article about a cloud quantum computing service that D-wave has started. The service, named Leap, will allow anyone whose signs up to have a one free minute of runtime on a quantum computer each month. D-wave claims that that minute is enough for users to execute between 400 and 4000 jobs for free each month.

What did you do this past week?

I had three interviews this week (1 in-person interview and 2 phone interviews). I had two on Thursday and one on Friday. The interview that I had on Friday was originally supposed to be on Monday. In addition to my interviews, I completed another coding sample. My group finished our security project a few days early. My SWE group started working on phase one of our project. We found a few relevant APIs and have started to create our own API in Postman.

What’s in your way?

As the semester progresses, it’s getting more difficult to schedule my interviews that they do not conflict with my classes.

What will you do next week?

Next week, I have my Google onsite interview. I’ll fly to Menlo Park on Wednesday and have my interview on Thursday. Unfortunately, my return flight leaves at 11:50 PM on Thursday. I won’t get back to Austin until 4 AM. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make it to class on time.

What’s your experience of the readings, so far? And, if you went, what did you think of the talk by Under Armour? (this question will vary, week to week)

I already read most of the individual papers that we have been assigned when I took OOP. I found the XP textbook to be incredibly dry. I enjoyed the OOP textbook a lot more than it. The DD book should be a good resource when we start to set up our database. I remember a lot of the information that is in the book from my Data Management. I’m primarily using the book to refresh knowledge that I already possess and fill any gaps. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the talk on Friday. I’m looking forward to the next talk.

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

My tip-of-the-week for this week is this HackerNews forum that I came across. In the forum, various software engineers discuss their opinions on how much work to accomplish in a day and avoiding burnout. Some of the big takeaways from the forum are to plan out tasks to get done today. Avoid consistently work more than 40 hours a week. Stay late when you’re in a flow or when you really need to.