CS373 Spring 2022: Cole Weinman — Week 4

What did you do this week?

This week I worked on work for my marketing and algorithms class. I also attended the first UT programming on Friday which was a fun experience. I also read the paper on pair programming which was interesting to read.

What’s in your way?

There was not much this week other than some distractions I had to deal with. I didn’t have a good place to be productive this week which slowed me down a bit. I’m hoping to work along with more next week so I won’t get distracted by others.

What will you do next week?

Next week I will begin studying for my two upcoming exams in marketing and algorithms. I will also catch up on my competitive programming work.

What did you think of Paper #4: Pair Programming?

I had previously read this article in operating systems, but it was refreshing to read it again. I still think pair programming is an interesting concept. In my limited experience, it can be very helpful but also very exhausting depending on the context and the partner. I’m curious how many companies now utilize pair programming.

What was your experience of exceptions and types?

Before this week I thought I knew everything about try-catch blocks but the lecture this week about exception refined my knowledge. I had not ever heard about the “else” part of a try-catch block and I had never thought too much about how parent exceptions will catch child exceptions. Learning about Python types was very interesting since I had never really thought too much about types in Python since you don’t need to define them. Also learning about how the “is” keyword works differently was interesting.

What made you happy this week?

This week I got to go to my friend's birthday party which was definitely the highlight of my week. Also, I had some free time since I was able to get ahead of the winter storm which was nice.

What is your pick-of-the-week?

My pick of the week is 23andMe DNA testing service. I got my results back over the weekend and it was so fascinating to learn more about my ancestry and health traits. It can tell if you’re more or less likely to get certain diseases or cancers which is very nice to know. It also has fun results like if you’re more or less like to be able to match musical pitches or to like vanilla vs chocolate ice cream. You can even see your raw DNA. The computational power used to read your whole DNA is a software engineering achievement and it’s only getting better over time. You can purchase a kit here: 23andme.com