CST 338 - Week 02

Which unit test was/is a challenge to pass, which was easy, what was the thing you were the most proud of completing?  

The easiest unit test to pass was the endsWithPunctuation test. The most challenging test to pass was the addWordTest; I had great difficulty getting it to pass due to several logical errors. Given that this method handled a majority of the work load, it was essential in getting it to pass in order to work out the other methods properly. It had many things to check and accomplish, which although would have been easy for me to do 2 years ago, the break I had from programming really beat me down. Overall, I am most proud of being able to get the program to pass all the unit tests. I was really beginning to feel like I would have to settle and be happy with just some of them passing. I spent a lot of time struggling and it didn't start to click until the final few hours before it was due.

    What made the Markov assignment so difficult was ironically, having access to the Test and being able to decipher what was being tested, and how I could tweak my program around to be able to pass it. It ended up becoming like a Rubik's cube for me, where I get some to pass, and I became fixated on leaving the method alone to work on other ones. It was not until I realized I had to work backwards a little, and tweak some of the methods that already passed, that then, other methods that were failing would pass too. That gave me the greatest sign of hope, but at the same time, made me feel like there was so much more digging I needed to do- the problems were not as isolated as I thought it would be.

All that to say, write a paragraph or two about what you worked on during week 1

During week 1, I spent time trying to freshen my memory on Java, and programming in general. I really enjoyed the CodingBat assignments that was given, because it was the perfect opportunity to refamiliarize and learn something new (HashMap, I know, never worked with them in community college). I completed the quizzes, and did a lot of smaller intro to UML and IntelliJ assignments. I also began looking over upcoming projects like Markov's text generation and the LDPM project. It gave me an idea of what areas I still felt like I was lacking in, and since I am a slow learner, extra time to start the project and allow the ideas to marinate.

Note to self: do not take longer than one day in between to work on projects. I spent a lot of time trying to review and remember where I left off and the train of thought I had on how I would approach the problem. It is better to get all the key ideas done first before taking a break in between the project. Probably should try to refrain from working on two different projects at the same time.

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