This is the first in a weekly series of blog posts I will be writing to document my experience inCS327E, Elements of Databases, for the Elements of Computing Program at The University of Texas at Austin
Check out my previous week’s blog post.
Monday, January 22nd
We had Monday off for MLK. I took my extra time to watch the Presidential Inauguration. Beyoncé was flawless.
Wednesday, January 24th
We spent class reviewing the source files for project one, carefully tracing the program calls between files, explaining key programing concepts like instance variables and class variables. At the moment the pace of this class seems slow, I guess that is primarilly becuase I feel comfortable with python. I’ve been monitoring Piazza, our online class forum, and it seems that other students are not having as easy of a time getting started. I’ve been trying to help and post responses and resources on the forum, things that were helpful for me when I was first learning python and git. I’m looking forward to this class picking up and becoming less trivial.
Friday, January 26th
We continued working through the program files today, though we spent more time looking at the requirements for the project. Professor Downing has structured the class such that programing projects are described much like a program spec would be done in a real software company. When I worked at Bazaarvoice last summer, we frequently developed code in a simliar fashion, working on cross-functional teams, all using github for source control, working from a single codebase. I’m very happy to see this same concept being taught in a university class. The other students seem to struggle with this concept, but I think it’s mostly being new to many of the tools. Based on the schedule, it looks like we will finally start digging into SQL this next week, I’m looking forward to it!
Check out next week’s blog post.