Friday, April 5, 2013

Progress

This week in class, we revisited the topic of recursion, which I found it to be confusing at first. But now, I am somewhat adequate with it. With this week's tutorial, I found it difficult in the problems provided. Recursion seems to be harder than I thought. So, for the exam period, I will revisit all lecture notes, past tutorial assignments and use Dr. Racket more frequently. Hopefully, it'll help me for the exam in the coming week

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Wiki Project Part III

About to start on my Wiki Project due this Friday. Based on the handout,i should be taking the comments from Part 2 and incorporate it into the Part 3 project, but it's not out yet.

So I go ahead without waiting?

Recursion

Today in class, we learned about recursion. At first, I was confused as to how to approach the coding. But doing it together with the class really helped and I was able to do some parts of the questions by myself.

However, I still have a problem describing the coding in picture.
For example:
In the recursion handout given out in class, the following expression is shown:

; s : number -> image
(define (s d)
    (cond
       [(> d 0)
         (beside/align "bottom"
                              (line 0 (+ 5 (* 2 d)) "red")
                              (rotate 90 (s (- d 1 ))))]
        [else (line 0 5 "red")]))

So I don't understand how (s 2) looks like
I had a different interpretation of (s 2). I thought it would look like steps....

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Assignments and Projects


Submitted my Wikipedia Part II assignment and I thought this web comics from XKCD would be appropriate to start the entry. Of course, there is nothing to worry because  I will not be doing that in my Part III assignment.

Going through the recent material and everything is okay. Curious as to why opacity is referred to as 'alpha'?

Starting my project with my team member, hope it goes well. A bit intimidating since I am applying my knowledge from what I have learned in computer science into this project assignment




Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Reading Week

Reading week has begun! This means I can catch up on my computer science stuff.
I've been so busy with midterms and assignments that I haven't had the time to post and stay on track with the material.
Other than that, I was quite surprised with my midterm result, but I definitely know I can do better.

With exams coming up, I'm wondering if this exam is cumulative. Maybe it's one of those cases where the material isn't cumulative but the material is built on the previous materials I have learnt.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Defining Week 3

I think I will come up with some creative post titles or start my posts with computer science puns/jokes.

Tuesday's class was the introduction of definition and coding! When the professor handed out a handout and told the class to fill in the empty line, I was so scared  because it was so overwhelming to see that much coding in one page. To be honest, I sat there re-reading each line and attempted it. It was somewhat successful, but felt discouraged.

Learning about definition brings some ease when I'm writing my functions because it can get long. However, I think what's frustrating and confusing is how one code can have so many coding embedded.  For example:
This was from the definition video
(check-expect (rosette pic:calendar)
                       (beside
                         (above pic:calendar (flip-vertical pic:calendar))
                        (flip-horizontal
                          (above pic:calendar (flip-vertical pic:calendar)))))

Visualizing how the pic:calendar would look in the end was confusing, so I kept on re-watching the videos over and over again. The check-expect test does help when checking the functions that I am creating. But after watching the videos, I realized that these embedded functions are similar to "peeling an onion", that I have to go pass one layer first, to get to the next layer. It helped in the end!


Friday, January 18, 2013

Welcome to my Blog!




Hello fellow readers,

chameleon transformation images

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post for my Computer Science class and I am quite excited for what it is in store for me.  The coding language that I will be learning is DrRacket and I must say: "so far, so good!" Watching all the DrRacket videos are informative, especially with the colorful lizard pictures throughout the videos (hence the picture above). I hope to be more familiarize with it by next week when I download the program into my laptop.

This week in class, I learned about the algorithms and what interested me was the life application to algorithms. When asked to write a simple algorithm to make pbj sandwich, I thought it was very easy. But when my professor actually applied the algorithm, I realized that there were so many minor details that I forgot to mention. Therefore, when writing algorithms for programs, I think it is very important to be as precise as possible because, not only is the computer running my program, but also, another reader wants to understand what I am writing in my program.

Looking forward to new materials!