CS371g Summer 2021 Final Entry: Albin Shrestha

• How well do you think the course conveyed those takeaways?

This class was a great learning experience and Professor Downing is an amazing teacher. This course thought me a great deal about the world of Generic Programming coding for multiple cases. This adjusted my coding standards and outlook when it comes to coding. Before I would make code structured around a specific data type, for example if I was making a calculator I would try to use only doubles or convert other types into doubles, but now I know how to make my calculator more generic.

• Were there any other particular takaways for you?

The greatest takeaways I will take from this course is to preform continuous integration and unit test code as you go along. Pushing changes as incremental adjustments were made became really useful in reverting mistakes and looking at code before you did. Unit testing code is almost a necessity for this type of programming as you can see what area of the code is failing, so that you don't waste a bunch of time looking for an error in the entire codebase, but rather one small component of it.

• How did you feel about cold calling?

I not someone who enjoys cold calling very much, but it was not too bad in this class. Sometimes life happens, especially while you are at home so I feel awkward leaving my computer even for a minute to help my dad get groceries or go to the bathroom because I don’t know if I will be called on. But I do understand why professor Downing does it.

• How did you feel about grading?

I did not like the grading system and felt like it just led to more confusion and gamification of the course. I feel like it would be better if we could see the points we have in a better way than what Canvas has. Maybe it is organized or structured better.

• How did you feel about office hours?

Office hours was a good experience Amogh was a great TA and he was very knowledgable about the course.

• How did you feel about support from Amogh?

He was amazing and understanding, honestly one of the best TA’s I have ever had, and a stand up guy as well.

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

Astyle, Doxygen, GTests were useful tools that we used in class that ended up being very helpful. Astyle made formatting code really easy. Doxygen created html pages easily. GTests allowed us to make unit tests easily.

• Give me your suggestions for improving the course.

This is a summer course so I know managing deadlines is hard, but I think some projects should have had an extended timeline, while some projects should have had a shorter one. The first and last projects took very little time compared to to the other projects. Also if there could be a way to calculate our current grade in the course though a simple calculator that is integrated into the class website that would be amazing.