• What did you like the least about the class?

I did not enjoy the first part of each exam. A shared sentiment was lack of time on the first part, specially exam 2. However, overwhelmingly my least favorite part was the online transition due to the pandemic. The lectures felt rushed and we did not get a chance to cover certain important topics in depth. I also think we should discuss a little more in depth about OOP design principles by designing a larger system.

• What did you like the most about the class?

Professor Downing and his lectures! The projects are also quite well crafted where we apply the concepts being covered in class and build upon concepts learnt earlier in the semester. You really end up learning how C++ works and what goes on under the hood. I have not had too much C++ exposure in the past but now I feel confident in having technical interviews in it just because of this class. Professor Downing really knows his stuff and structures the course content in a sequential building block method. His lectures are among the best I have had at UT. I recommend taking both of his courses (SWE and OOP), you will be a better computer scientist because of it.

• What’s the most significant thing you learned?

C++. Plain and simple. I have the confidence of having completed the projects and understanding the concepts Professor Downing taught in class. The content is very relevant and prepares you well for deeper understanding of the language and stepping into the professional world. The principles of OOP will be instilled into your programming style. Additionally, I would recommend everyone work with a partner for each project. It is a surefire way of succeeding in the projects instead of working on it alone. I really learned to appreciate the value of working in pairs with someone new each time.

• How many hours a week did you spend coding/debugging/testing for this class?

I probably spent an average of 8-10 hours per project, so probably 4-5 hours per week.

• How many hours a week did you spend reading/studying for this class?

0. Probably 3-4 hours before exam 1a and 5-6 hours before 2a. Other than that, nothing else at all.

• How many lines of code do you think you wrote?

I think ~1250 lines of code sounds like a reasonable number.

• What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?

I was forced to ssh into the CS machines a lot, something I used to do less of before as I just worked on the lab machines on campus. Using sublime for sftp and other ssh tips and tricks were a useful addition.

• How did you feel about the two-stage quizzes and tests?

I am a fan of the two-stage quizzes, it helps most of us understand the questions and answers better.

I think the two-stage tests are a good idea, having taken SWE and OOP and experience them in both. In the second part, everyone is motivated to work together and get a 100. It is a nice feature of the course. I would advise other students to be very quick in attempting the first part, time is always an issue.

• How did you feel about the cold calling, in the end?

I don’t mind it at all. Professor Downing does not penalize you or make you feel bad about not knowing the answers and helps you work through the question. It ensures we stay engaged in the class, and his lectures are great to begin with.

• What did you do this past week?

I had an exam on Thursday, so the earlier part of the week was focused on prepping for that. I found a partner for the next project, Life. Amazingly, my partner finished 8 out of 12 tests on Thursday, so that put us in a real good place for the remainder of the week. Hopefully, we can finish it before Friday.

• What’s in your way?

I really need to revisit the vector hackerranks and all the other material covered in class. I think Professor Downing has been crunched for time and we’ve breezed through a lot of material, stuff that is probably super critical for the exam. So I need to spend time going over the exercises and making sure I understand what is going.

Studying for the exam set me back in my other courses so the early part of next week also will be playing catch up.

• What will you do next week?

I will have to review some of the material I missed last week in all my classes and then begin wrapping up my projects and papers as we enter the final 2 weeks of this topsy-turvy semester. I hope my partner and I are able to finish Life well before the weekend. I also have a Algorithms assignment due on Tuesday. It is a busy 12 days coming up but I’m looking forward to getting in to it.

• What was your experience of allocator?

I enjoyed learning about it. Professor Downing builds on his concepts and ideas sequentially, so I feel like a lot of the material we have covered this semester is being put into use in our final implementations of vector, allocator and move amongst others. It has been a bit rushed, as we have one less lecture plus the lost week during Spring Break.

• What made you happy this week?

I was finally able to work on a side project as a breather this weekend and it really perked my mood up. I felt good about devoting time into stuff that is not school or work related.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts and I rediscovered one I used to listen a lot to before – Reply All. I would recommend the episode – Long Distance. Quite mindblowing and a fun listen.

• What did you do this past week?

I wrapped up the Darwin assignment. It was not as challenging as I expected, although wrapping my head around the class relations and how to manage the board was the key to solving the project in the expected way. It was an interesting project, and one that brought out the OOP design concepts that Downing has been talking about quite well. Every project seems to reuse some concept from the previous projects, which I enjoy.

I worked on some group assignments, and started figuring out what the rest of the semester is going to look like. I do not have any finals, but all my classes have exams in the last week of class, which is going to brutal.

I was a bit lazy in attending classes this week, I have been trying to keep the same schedule. However, this week, my schedule was completely off, and I ended having to listen a lot of lectures over the weekend to catch up. Have to fix that starting Monday.

• What’s in your way?

Keeping a good routine and schedule and staying motivated. It get’s challenging balancing work, school and research with a good routine and schedule at home – working out, cooking, cleaning etc. I cannot wait for May 8th when the semester ends and I can devote more time to myself.

• What will you do next week?

I want to get ahead of the curve and make healthy progress on the next project. Being the last one, I expect it will be the most challenging. Alongside that, I will run everyday and ensure I do some physical activity every day … and apply to jobs. Let’s see how it all turns out!

• What was your experience of r-value references and move semantics?

I followed some of it and some of it I will have to revisit. I need to review the vector class stuff we did and the move semantics. The r-value references was super interesting and I appreciate learning about it.

• What made you happy this week?

I have been making progress on 2 side projects related to sports analytics, which has been rewarding. I would have been able to work on them if I was out and about.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

sftp for Sublime is useful when SSH-ing into the UTCS machine.

• What did you do this past week?

I had an exam which I think went well. It was on campus, which was interesting. I hadn’t been to campus since the Thursday before Spring Break. I have never seen it that empty, and I doubt it will ever be like this again once the pandemic clears up.

I found a partner to work on Project 4 with, which is always a good thing. Working in pairs definitely helps both members of the team. We made significant progress this week, and have gotten our creatures moving and infecting correctly. This seems to be slightly easier than Allocator, which took a while to understand.

I am slowly getting used to attending lectures via Zoom and making sure I am not distracted. I enjoyed learning about how to implement vector. Professor Downing really builds up on each concept he touches upon and gives us a good base off of which to go ahead and implement the projects.

• What’s in your way?

I think maintaining the intensity towards my classwork and job have become secondary concerns. The main issue is working out and staying fit/active.

• What will you do next week?

My project partner and I are aiming to wrap up the Hackerrank Tests by tonight/tomorrow and then work on the all other requirements. I have another 2 exams and a paper this week which I will work on. Additionally, I will resume recruiting again (after a large pause due to the pandemic).

• What was your experience of vector?

I enjoyed it. Professor Downing uses the concepts we learnt earlier in the semester to teach us how to implement vector. We understand the design patterns and under the hood mechanisms. Having very little recent C++ experience prior to this class, I have learnt a lot and appreciated the opportunity to get better at C++.

• What was your experience of the ethics material?

I believe I attended this presentation during my SWE class last semester. I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed revisiting it today. I am also enrolled in C S 378: Behavorial Ethics in the Digital Age, and I have begun to appreciate the ethical challenges with technology even more.

• What made you happy this week?

I have been reconnecting with older friends and relatives that I would not normally have spoken to due to being busier (being able to go outside etc.).

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I would suggest not using any of the smart devices at home – Echo, Google Home etc. None of this is regulated yet and I do not believe any of these companies will be stopped by ethical quandaries in the pursuit of making profits off consumers.

• What did you do this past week?

It was a weird week. We had our lectures either live via Zoom (for this class), and some others pre-recorded the lectures and posted them on Canvas. It gets a bit challenging staying on top of classes on top of maintaining a good routine and whatnot, although one would imagine staying at home would make this easier.

This week was pretty brutal, I had 4 exams, one each in my 4 classes. For most of the week, I was solely focused on doing well in those. There were several technology hiccups, but hopefully, things go smoother the rest of the semester.

I also wrapped up Project 3 – Allocator. I was fortunate enough to find a partner to work with and despite some issues on the way, we turned it in with an hour to spare.

• What’s in your way?

I think the theme of this answer will be the same for most of us – the pandemic has thrown a bunch of our plans and lives out of whack. Additionally, all my 5 interviews were postponed indefinitely so it leaves a bit confused as to how to approach recruiting in this current time.

• What will you do next week?

I want to get started on and finish the next Project early on so that I am not stressed about finishing it the week after. I think this will be pretty challenging, so it will be important to start sooner rather than later. I will also have 2 more exams next week, so I will prep for those. I also hope to begin some sort of working out regimen at home from Monday.

• What was your experience of Test #1b?

I did not mind it, to be honest. I think the groups should be smaller, closer to 2-3 people max. It is a collaborative exam, and everyone wants to get their code working correctly, so lesser number of people is better. Or, it could be that everyone in one breakout room gets one submission, one grade, like our projects. This ensure everyone is working together for one collective aim.

• What made you happy this week?

I am cooking lots of food for myself, something I had stopped doing this just before spring break as I was very busy and eating unhealthily. Staying at home, I have been making and baking a lot!

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

Use teletype on atom! Very useful for us when doing the projects.

• Are you and your family safe and sound where you are?

We all live in different cities and do our best to keep ourselves entertained at home. My parents live in New Jersey, so that plays on my mind a bit.

• How do feel about your ability to finish the term completely online?

I think it will be quite challenging to remain motivated and perform as well as we normally might. Not being able to meet people and interact face to face, being on campus or using the labs in the midst of this situation, will provide a unique challenge.

• What made you happy this week?

I have begun cooking healthily and regularly. I did not eat out even once this week.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

Just make sure to step outside once a day for a quick walk and fresh air!

• What did you do this past week?

I did not do much class related work. We did not have any project work this week. I had a low-key week, with most of my classes having bit of a lull in their work. I tried to take it easy this week, as I have 3 exams this coming week among other projects to work on and it will be a rough couple of days before the spring break. I will also work on my midterm paper due at the end of this week.

• What’s in your way?

I have not been going to the gym as often as I wanted to. Work, research and class has eaten into a chunk of time every day and I feel tired when I have free time. Hopefully, I’ll get back into the gym routine soon. I’m looking forward to spring break, I will try to fix my routine and eat healthier.

• What will you do next week?

I will be studying for my 3 exams, including this class. I will work on the hackerrank exercises and review the test cases we cover in class. I will try to make some preliminary progress on Allocator, as we will only have 2 class days after break to work on it. It is kind of strange that we get such less time for this project, I’ve heard that this is quite difficult.

• What was your experience of range_iterator, range and iteration? (this question will vary, week to week)

We covered these topics in SWE last semester as well. Therefore, it was not new in theory. However, learning about their implementations in C++ made it quite interesting. I enjoyed the HR exercises and it helped me appreciate the nuances of python and C++ more. Professor Downing really leads us into understanding how the language works at a deeper design level.

• What made you happy this week?

I got 2 job offers and a final round interview from a company I really want to work at. That was a good feeling.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I had to give several technical coding interviews this past month, and it was pretty stressful as I do not enjoy these sort of interviews. But a piece of advice from that experience is: Practise the hackerrank interview exercises! Super helpful and relevant to our tech interviews.

• What did you do this past week?

I wrapped up Voting with a partner. I did not plan on working with someone for this assignment, however, it definitely made life easier having someone to rely on and also ensure we met our requirements. We were able to wrap up the hackerrank part pretty easily, but had some difficulty in getting our merge request approved – classic Windows vs Linux issue with the newline at the end of file. Regardless, working with someone was a better experience and I appreciate Professor Downing’s emphasis on this with the bonus points. I will look to work with a partner for each of the following assignments.

We also covered the concepts of containers, container adapters and iterators. As usual, I enjoyed Professor Downing’s lectures, I always come out of it feeling like I learned something. His style of teaching is engaging and it shows that he cares about the experience his students have. Having taken SWE in the past, he is definitely one of my favorite Professors in the C S department.

• What’s in your way?

Exams and recruiting. This is recruiting season, and having to manage school work with technical interviews is quite challenging. I do not want my course performance to suffer, and therefore have a few sleepless nights ahead with the first round of exams to follow soon along with many interviews. I also need to get back into the gym – packing on some weight to add to the already added holiday weight …

• What will you do next week?

I will work on prepping for tech interviews, applying to more jobs and studying for exams. I have a paper due end of this week as well. A busy week, and hopefully I can make time for a couple visits to the gym.

• What was your experience of containers, container adapters and iterators? (this question will vary, week to week)

I enjoyed learning about the concept of backing containers. We are getting into the thick of true C++ knowledge, and I appreciate the bottom ups approach Professor Downing has taken. It helps us better appreciate how the language works under the hood. It is cool to know why the default container for a specific data structure is a deque, list or vector.

I knew a lot about iterators from SWE, so there was nothing new there – but I appreciate the hackerrank exercises to practice our understanding.

• What made you happy this week?

My girlfriend and I discovered how to make perfect omelette – definitely made us happy this weekend.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I know this is not a python class, but for those looking to code in python – I suggest pycharm. The professional version is free for students. A must use for python coders.

• What did you do this past week?

I wrapped up the remaining tasks that surrounded the Collatz submission, and confirmed I was on top of everything with a visit to Professor Downing’s office hours. Hopefully, I did not miss anything!

We covered arrays in this week’s lectures along with an overview of the next project – Voting. As usual, Professor Downing’s lectures are filled with useful information and he guides to a deeper understanding of the language itself. His method of teaching is quite impactful in helping students grasp the fundamental concepts behind each topic he is covering. I enjoyed learning about arrays work under the hood in C++, and I can imagine we will have more iterator stuff coming up soon.

The next project seems … okay, conceptually. I am sure there will be several issues when doing the actual implementation. The tough part of this project will again, the various tasks surrounding the program itself. We have to build our own test and run harnesses, as well as our own .yml and make files.

I also attended the 2nd UTPC and definitely myself a bit better than the 1st time. I recommend it to all.

• What’s in your way?

I had a reasonably successful, albeit busy week last week. I think I just have to be careful with time management and burnout. I am taking 3 CS UDE’s while working, so I need to ensure I stay on top of my responsibilities.

• What will you do next week?

I have an exam in one of my other CS courses, so I will study for that and hopefully get the implementation of the project itself completed. If I do accomplish that, I can spend the following week working on the extraneous tasks of the project.

• What was your experience of Project #1: Collatz (the problem, the overkill requirements of submission, etc.)?

I do not mind it. I understand the point of it, and appreciate the overkill nature of the work surrounding the project(s). It gives us a more holistic understanding of development in the real world as well as exposing us to more tools and technologies.

• What made you happy this week?

I received 2 full time offers and had a successful week work-wise. My long distance girlfriend is also visiting for 3 weeks.

• What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

https://sidewaysdictionary.com/#/term/http – this is a cool site which has easy to understand explanations of technical terms. I find it a useful way to learn how to explain some concepts to a layman.

• What did you do this past week?

I wrapped up most of Collatz. It took a while to pass the 3rd test, but most of it was accomplished in one evening at the lab. I spent a significant amount of time trying to get an environment set up on my Windows machine, unsuccessfully. That part of the process was a bit frustrating. However, now I just have the Doxygen and astyle part left. I will be going to into office hours tomorrow to confirm that I have all my requirements up to spec, so I do not lose points unnecessarily.

I had to skip Friday as I was down with the flu, so hopefully I can catch up on what was covered that day. I really enjoyed Wednesday’s lecture on references, Professor Downing’s lectures are as usual very informative and I learn a lot. I have limited exposure to C++ in recent times, so this course is turning out to be quite useful.

Additionally, I also prepped for the career fair; moment of truth coming up for us!

• What’s in your way?

The flu really hampered my weekend. I had to remain in bed most of the weekend, and threw me off my study schedule. The coming week will be tough and hopefully I can catch up. First round of exams start the following week!

Secondly, I really need to ramp up my gym visits. It helps me de-stress and not going dampens my mood a bit.

• What will you do next week?

I will wrap up Collatz on Monday and spent my time doing homework for other classes. Tuesday and the remainder of the week will most likely be the career fair, follow-ups and prepping for interviews. This part of the semester is always tough as we have exams and interviews, hopefully we all come out unscathed.

• What was your experience of exceptions, references, and consts?

I really enjoyed Wednesday’s lecture. I knew the material covered about exceptions already, but I always appreciate the detailed refresher via the lectures. I did not attend class on Friday, and therefore missed learning about consts. I will try to follow the code he covered and go into office hours tomorrow.

• What made you happy this week?

Last week was a bit low for me, but I think after working hard all week – I spent time playing a new video game (Shadow of War). I felt good that I was able to game again.

1. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/15643 – this has some useful C++ tricks. I found one particularly useful for Collatz.