Comments | ayun: Quantitative Data

ayun

Quantitative Data

Nov 01, 2013 15:02

I don't feel like it's really necessary for me to wait to get my midterm grade back to say out loud that I'm doing just fine in this Java class. Like, I even do the extra credit stuff because it's easy enough and why the fuck not, so I'm running somewhere north of a perfect score at the moment ( Read more... )

Comments 10

brigid November 1 2013, 22:38:07 UTC

i had 2 math requirements at emerson ;p

ayun November 2 2013, 22:53:20 UTC

Huh, so that's what they replaced the four public speaking classes with?

_perihelion_ November 2 2013, 01:08:36 UTC

I have to force myself to write on a regular basis so that that skill set does not atrophy. nonetheless, the rush I get from reading an evocative and well constructed page of prose is much the same as I get when reviewing a difficult but efficiently coded piece of software I've written. is one easier to construct than the other? is one more creative? I don't know. I think that might be a matter of practice and proficiency.

also, I do know I'm a tweaker. I'm endlessly tweaking my writing or my code as I review them to make it just a touch more efficient, a little clearer, or maybe just a little bit more cool. :)

ayun November 3 2013, 00:14:45 UTC

I always felt, but know really know that there's an element of creativity (and certainly imagination) in programming. Certainly you're creating when you write a program, and I particularly enjoy discovering a new efficiency, or sorting out which 'solution' to a problem is the most elegant (or readable, or extendable, or...)

I think (based on this obviously limited experience) that coding and writing have similarities, but the pleasure of writing (for me) is its open-endedness, and the pleasure of coding is working within its constraints.

A time-lapse video of a text window containing the draft of this entry would be hilarious. Whole paragraphs and trains of thought deleted without hesitation! One sentence tweaked forever and ever! I don't revise my code as much, but I have settled into a pattern of working through each problem set three times: Once to get a solution, once to make the solution 'nice' and one last time to add all the commenting and check for consistent formatting.

cris November 3 2013, 04:18:51 UTC

So, part of what we do for interviews at the new job is have Google Hangouts where we ask the candidate to do a screenshare and write code to attack a problem and we judge them less on whether they get the right answer but more on style and approach. I think that once you get past the introductory level stuff and you start working in frameworks and realize that there's a whole universe of tools, libraries and 3rd-party objects that you can pull into your work, the choices and styles around how you solve a problem are just as important as the problem that is being solved ( ... )

plankton November 3 2013, 17:55:59 UTC

I agree that programming is highly creative once you get past trivial problems (and the trivial problem can be fun to complete in a soothing "tidying your desk" kind of way ( ... )

plankton November 2 2013, 16:53:25 UTC

I'm doing just fine in this Java classI see what you did there ( ... )

ayun November 3 2013, 00:23:41 UTC

Ha! That was totally unintentional.

One of the many tangential thoughts I deleted from this post was an appreciation for the scaffolding that the course does - we're just now starting to write programs that are complicated enough that they can be tested, so notions of edge cases, and unhappy paths/error scenarios, are starting to get introduced in a very organic way. Some of the test scenarios that are required in the homework force you to build in some ability to extend the program to a different set of requirements. This class has been taught at FAS and the Extension School for years and it's clear to me that the curriculum has been refined over many many iterations. There's a part of me that's enjoying the course simply for that aspect alone.

clevernonsense November 4 2013, 16:59:42 UTC

I've known like 11 cats named Java, so your entire post was hilariously confusing when I refused to let that thought go.

kirkjerk November 8 2013, 20:20:00 UTC

Glad the programming is chiming for you!! I started in comp sci to get out of having to take a calculus class, which sort of backfired when comp sci became my major but bought me enough time to get my study habits up to college level ( ... )