Happy Halloween! ~
This week's quiz was on operations and conditions. I was used to substrings way back when I was programming in JAVA.
The "last-half" function is what stumped me. This function is supposed to show the last half of a word. The problem is the definition of "half." If a word had an odd number of letters, I had to decide if I should round up or round down the number of letters
(ex. "bunny" -> "bun" / "bu")
It was a relatively easy quiz, although the conditions part of the tutorial was really odd.
For example, a function had to determine if two words were "greater" than each other. At first, I thought it was determined by the number of characters a string had, but I was wrong. It was actually based on alphabetical order. By that logic, "b" is greater than "a."
(This also got me thinking that this logic would be useful later for organizing words in alphabetical order.)
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The lecture focused more on operating systems, algorithms and encryption.
I remembered how characters (such as "H" and "#") have numerical "value" (ASCII code.)
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
October 24th
This week's quiz was based on a tutorial on animations. It was probably one of the hardest quizzes I ever took. When I program at home, I can take as much time as I want. When I'm taking a 10-minute quiz, it just puts so much pressure on me than it should. My brain may just make some dumb mistakes that I would not have made if I was working on it at home.
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This week, the lectures were about Moore's Law and storage. I was used to storing data on CDs when I was a kid, but I lost most of them by now. I use USB drives now because they're portable and they're much easier than using a disc. It also allows me to safely store my data in case my laptop or my PC crash. I also have an external hard drive to store my writings and other files ever since I started university.
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This week, the lectures were about Moore's Law and storage. I was used to storing data on CDs when I was a kid, but I lost most of them by now. I use USB drives now because they're portable and they're much easier than using a disc. It also allows me to safely store my data in case my laptop or my PC crash. I also have an external hard drive to store my writings and other files ever since I started university.
October 17th
This week's quiz involved a timer function that works with each "tick."
While I was studying for this quiz, I tried to understand what was going on when the "barracuda" was moving. After analyzing the code, I found that a new white "rectangle" was being created every tick. The program was set to create a new rectangle beside the barracuda which would push the barracuda to the right. I tried doing the same thing, but I used above instead. This made a new (invisible) rectangle on top of the barracuda, thus giving it the illusion of moving vertically.
Big-was also a new thing for this quiz. I thought it acted as a "loop" like in JAVA programming. The big-bang function was meant to loop everything in the program in general while adding more "ticks." In a sense, there was no real difference between this and a do...while loop in JAVA with a counter.
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The lecture went more into algorithms (the demonstration with the phone book was amusing.)
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The following Friday, we were supposed to hand-in our plan for the wikipedia project. I already planned mine out:
1. I would link the "Mami Soup" page to another page since it was an orphan article.
2. I would add more citation to the "LCD projector" article.
3. I will ask questions about improving the "Chobits" page and ask for permission to update information.
While I was studying for this quiz, I tried to understand what was going on when the "barracuda" was moving. After analyzing the code, I found that a new white "rectangle" was being created every tick. The program was set to create a new rectangle beside the barracuda which would push the barracuda to the right. I tried doing the same thing, but I used above instead. This made a new (invisible) rectangle on top of the barracuda, thus giving it the illusion of moving vertically.
Big-was also a new thing for this quiz. I thought it acted as a "loop" like in JAVA programming. The big-bang function was meant to loop everything in the program in general while adding more "ticks." In a sense, there was no real difference between this and a do...while loop in JAVA with a counter.
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The lecture went more into algorithms (the demonstration with the phone book was amusing.)
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The following Friday, we were supposed to hand-in our plan for the wikipedia project. I already planned mine out:
1. I would link the "Mami Soup" page to another page since it was an orphan article.
2. I would add more citation to the "LCD projector" article.
3. I will ask questions about improving the "Chobits" page and ask for permission to update information.
October 10th
The term test was pretty straightforward, but there were some things there that I found troubling. I was not fond of history and I probably did not do so well on the final question. It was the first term test that I ever got and I was pretty nervous at the time. I guess I can't really think under those circumstances. I tend to learn better from my mistakes, anyway.
I know now that the problem lies in my method of studying. I'm not good at memorizing, but computers is a very technical subject. Programming involves logic, which is my strongest point. I am probably not going to do well on the history of computers in future tests, but I have room for improvement.
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This week, we focused on algorithms. I only recognized algorithms when I was doing math or physics. I knew that there was logic behind everyday routines (like brushing your teeth, putting on clothes, etc...), but I never really considered it.
I had a feeling that recursion was going to come up sooner or later...
I know now that the problem lies in my method of studying. I'm not good at memorizing, but computers is a very technical subject. Programming involves logic, which is my strongest point. I am probably not going to do well on the history of computers in future tests, but I have room for improvement.
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This week, we focused on algorithms. I only recognized algorithms when I was doing math or physics. I knew that there was logic behind everyday routines (like brushing your teeth, putting on clothes, etc...), but I never really considered it.
I had a feeling that recursion was going to come up sooner or later...
October 3rd
This week went into binary. I was familiar with binary representing integers.
For example, I knew that the number 13 was 1101 in binary. Since it was less than 15, I knew it would not go past four bits. So basically, I had this (_ _ _ _) in my head as a mental image. I knew that the values are exponentials of 2 - starting with 1 (starting from the right end). From there, I subtracted 8 from 13 which meant that the first bit would be "1." The difference is 5, which meant that it could be subtracted by 4. This meant that the next bit would be a "1." The difference of that is 1, which meant that it could not be subtracted by 2, so the next bit would be a "0." Finally, we take that 1 and fill in the last bit, with a "1," since it can be subtracted by 1. This is my logic for converting a number into binary.
I was unaware that converting a number into binary could be done by dividing it by 2 several times. I was used to the above method.
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So next week is the term test. I'm not exactly thrilled about it, but I hope I do well. I've been doing great so far on quizzes, so I probably won't do so bad.
For example, I knew that the number 13 was 1101 in binary. Since it was less than 15, I knew it would not go past four bits. So basically, I had this (_ _ _ _) in my head as a mental image. I knew that the values are exponentials of 2 - starting with 1 (starting from the right end). From there, I subtracted 8 from 13 which meant that the first bit would be "1." The difference is 5, which meant that it could be subtracted by 4. This meant that the next bit would be a "1." The difference of that is 1, which meant that it could not be subtracted by 2, so the next bit would be a "0." Finally, we take that 1 and fill in the last bit, with a "1," since it can be subtracted by 1. This is my logic for converting a number into binary.
I was unaware that converting a number into binary could be done by dividing it by 2 several times. I was used to the above method.
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So next week is the term test. I'm not exactly thrilled about it, but I hope I do well. I've been doing great so far on quizzes, so I probably won't do so bad.
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