Week 7

 Homework One assignment was the Markov Prompt. It read a text file and generated a collection of words and those that followed it to generate a new text. Sometimes the new sentences made sense and sometimes, they were just strange. It is funny to think about how I thought it was such a difficult assignment, but looking back, it was the only one I managed to get all the tests to pass on. I think I had the best approach with it so far, reading the prompt for understanding, then going through it once more to set up skeleton methods, prior to writing the code. How I would approach it differently is to sit down and think about my approach a little more. The prompt seemed so thorough and like it covered everything, that I just went for it. However, when it was time, I got stuck on areas like addWord and getSentence for DAYS because algorithms matter. I would also better organize myself with each method by creating a chart, because as I worked on some of them, I realized it made calls to other methods I have yet to complete. Then I would jump there, then forget to go back to complete the previous one. I also did not implement the use of TODOs at the time, which I use more often now. That would have been extremely helpful at the time.

We have covered so many different areas in a short time. I honestly wish I had a little more time on them for the knowledge to really be sealed in my brain. I have progressed in my knowledge of Java. I was always intimidated by the use of enhanced for loops and preferred to stick with the traditional use. As time went on, it began to make more sense and really simplify the work. I also became familiar with String Builder, which has been absolutely awesome, compared to my old ways of appending new strings to a sentence. Also, as silly as it is, I have finally gained a better understanding of “static” uses and encapsulation. I also hear about GitHub often, but never had the experience in it. I am absolutely ecstatic in now being able to understand how to navigate it and understand the benefits it can provide. Once again, shout out to Pol for making the instructional video for us to understand the use of terminal commands, pushing/commiting/pulling. I would have wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out if it wasn’t for that video.