CS373 Spring 2022 — Week 4 Blog, Joseph Muffoletto

What did you do this past week?

This past week, I attended lectures, completed Collatz, and performed in my fraternity’s talent show (Unity).

What’s in your way?

Right now, I still need to complete the job for my lab which is relatively over the deadline. I have been dealing with an incredibly finicky bug, and I am not sure how to resolve it. The issue is with how Mac validates signatures, and I am unable to replicate it on my own machine.

What will you do next week?

Next week, I will complete the job for my lab. I will also run some simulations for my research with a separate lab so that we can meet this Tuesday. For my classes, I will complete my distributed computing lab, my reinforcement learning readings, and my systems verification homework. For Longhorn Racing, I want to organize a celebration to mark the launch of our telemetry server.

What did you think of Paper #4: Pair Programming?

Since I last read this paper in OOP, my experiences in CS have confirmed my trust in pair programming. I definitely agree with the authors’ sentiment, and I think pair programming is an incredibly valuable tool.

What was your experience of exceptions and types? (this question will vary, week to week)

I was quite surprised by how finicky Python’s exception and type systems are. I have never really used exceptions in Python, as I generally just use raw assertions to validate preconditions or verify algorithms. It was helpful to learn about the try-except-else-finally block. As for types, I feel fairly comfortable, but I strongly dislike the use of the “is” keyword.

What made you happy this week?

Last Friday, my fraternity hosted our talent show “Unity”. It was the first time we were able to have it since before the pandemic (2.5 years now!), and I am really glad I got to perform in it. We’ve been practicing since we came back to campus, so it was incredibly satisfying to see our work pay off.

Over the weekend, my software team in Longhorn Racing-IC launched the MVP for our in-house telemetry server. Looking back, it's incredibly gratifying to see how we turned a casual conversation (all the way back in August!) into a full-fledged web app for the team. I am incredibly proud of all of the work we have done, especially since we all did it out of our interest and satisfaction with the team.

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

Communicate with your professors! In my experience, they have all been incredibly understanding. Even if you cannot make up missed assignments, it is best to let your professor know what happened so as not to disrespect the work they have been doing.