CS373 Fall 2020: Stephen Zheng
The following is for blog entry #3 for CS373.
What did you do this past week?
I worked on the Collatz project. This includes forking the repository, inviting graders, changing the repo to private, setting up issues, implementing the simplest possible solution and optimizing it, and fixing and creating new test cases. As usual, I also attended the lectures and took the daily quizzes. In class this week, we learned about a few more optimizations that we could implement for Collatz.
What’s in your way?
Implementing enough optimizations to pass test case number 3 on Hackerrank. Hopefully I will get it done by the end of the day. Also, I’m not sure if black or the other tools will work or install smoothly, since I am not using docker right now.
What will you do next week?
Hopefully I will finish the project and turn it in within the next day. I still need to finish the optimizations and format with black, submit tests, etc. I think I will look into docker so that I can be set up for the next project without having to go through the hassle of trying to install the tools on my own machine or SSHing to the school computers.
What was your experience of Collatz, the starter code, the makefile, its optimizations, and exceptions? (this question will vary, week to week)
Collatz is interesting but the process for the project is a little tedious, in my opinion. The starter code was helpful, but could have been more clear on how to submit to Hackerrank itself. The makefile was very confusing but I haven’t really touched it outside of Perusall. The optimizations for this project are intriguing by how simple the concepts are, and how they make such a huge difference in performance. I haven’t really dealt with exceptions.
What made you happy this week?
I received a lot of food from home. It was shipped with my roommate after he went back to our hometown for a bit. It was literally dozens of packs of meat and vegetables, so I think I will be set to quarantine for at least a few weeks.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
I recently used RetailMeNot to save myself 10$ on my purchase from Insomnia Cookies. It’s a pretty amazing webservice that operates entirely from comission, so you essentially save yourself money for free.