2 Sep – 8 Sep

What did you do this past week?

I forked and cloned the git repo, made the issues, made a simple solution to the problem, committed that (while closing some issues along the way), and then made a program to create the metatable. Oh, I also downloaded the packages that this project uses, which filled me with an unearned sense of pride.

What’s in your way?

I haven’t started on actually using the metatable in the Collatz evaluation method. It seems to mostly be an issue of finding out where the bounds are of the subranges within a given range, or something like that. I have some ideas on how I’ll implement it. It’s just one of those problems that you don’t really want to do because it seems a so nebulous, but once you do actually start then the solutions, or at least the problems, become a lot clearer. So I guess you could say, the only thing that’s in my way, is myself.

What will you do next week?

I will solve the problem mentioned above, then do all of the auxiliary tasks that I normally wouldn’t do but have to do for this class because they’re good-practice and in the long run will save me a lot of effort, even though it fills my insides with exasperated groans and sighs loud enough to be heard across the astral plane.

What was your experience in learning about assertions and going over the Collatz project?

I was in Software Engineering, so this is the second time that I have been explained this stuff. So I guess I would describe the experience as being a load off my brain.

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

In general I recommend the Youtuber Tom Scott. If you don’t already know about him, he makes a bunch of interesting educational videos about history, physics, computer science, etc. If you specifically want something about software development, I recommend his series on how to build an app. It gives you a bunch of advice regarding each phase of app creation, from development to maintenance to marketing (and also about how it’s usually not a good idea to build an app). He also did some stuff with computerphile, like how electronic voting machines are a bad idea or how internationalization is such a headache to code into your program.