Since the due date for my first assignment in CSC148 just passed, I thought I would take this SLOG to reflect on the assignment - what I enjoyed, what I found interesting, and what was a challenge.
I really enjoyed working on this project. I almost always enjoy projects in my computer science courses, because they give me such a large sense of accomplishment at the end. Not only have I completed the project, but I have a working program! One that does something, if not useful, then at least entertaining. I love the feeling that I'm actually doing something worthwhile, not just work for work's sake. I really loved that I could see a graphical version of my work at the end as well. It made the code feel very tangible, and it was an amazing feeling to know why what I was seeing on the screen was actually working.
My favourite part of the assignment was coding the recursive function tour_of_four_stools. I found it very interesting to see recursive code in action, especially recursive code that I had written. I liked being able to apply the recursive three-stool function we had learned in class to a new function. It really solidified for me how the recursion was working. This assignment made me feel much more confident in recursion. Although I was beginning to grasp what it was before, I really think I'm starting to understand WHY it works much more now.
One of the most challenging parts of the assignment for me was the coordination between the different parts of the code. Getting one code file working would cause another to stop working and vise-versa. The same thing happened within files as well - just when one function started working, another would stop. Often it wouldn't even be the functions I were tweaking that caused these problems, but some third function that was also related to both of them! I had trouble figuring this out a couple of times. Debugging this program could be really frustrating at some points, but figuring out problems in my code was also really satisfying once I found them.
Now that assignment 1 is finished, it's time to start studying for the midterm! Hooray!
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