CS371g Summer 2020: Hogan Tran Blog 2

What did you do this past week?

For this past week, I have been working on the Collatz project. The beginning has been easy so far: forking the public code repo, cloning it to my local machine, and testing the “incorrect tests”. I have never used GitLab or Git in general before but it was simple to understand. However, I spent a lot of time still trying to set up my local Windows machine. Creating environmental paths for everything was a little confusing so I eventually just worked solely on the CS Linux machines through SSH. So far, I have implemented the simplest solution, and now, I’m working to optimize the code by introducing caches.

What’s in your way?

The only big thing in my way is understanding how to set up Google Tests for my Windows machine. I have opted to work on the CS Linux machines until then. The Collatz project itself is going along smoothly.

What will you do next week?

For next week, I am going to finish up on the Collatz project and hopefully take a look into Project 2 soon. I also want to finish setting up my Windows machine for future projects.

What was you experience of assertions, unit tests, pointers, and references?

Assertions and unit tests are new to me. I have seen them before in previous CS classes because unit tests were always written for us, but I have never taken a deeper look into understanding how they work. It is interesting to see how assertions relate to unit testing as well; assertions are not a good use for unit testing because if one assertion fails, then the following assertions or “tests” may not execute.

I am familiar with pointers C. They act very similarly to those in C++. However, I have always had a hard time understanding the underlying mechanics of incrementing pointers, the values of pointers, and how pointers relate to arrays. Furthermore, I do not have experience with references in any language. Their introduction seem to confuse me further when my understanding of references is not that good.

How are you doing and holding up? What’s been most helpful for you in terms of support at this time?

I am doing fine as I am trying not to fall too behind on the Collatz project. I finally got to head back to my family in Houston for the first time since Winter break. I have missed the homemade food and family love that has been absent since quarantine. Seeing my family has been the biggest support at this confusing and scary time in terms of sanity and mental well-being.

What made you happy this week?

My little brother has been hoping for me to visit since quarantine, so seeing him happy also makes me happy.

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

A lot of you guys may already know about this in Git, but I found that you can quickly close an issue with any commit simply by typing “Fixes #<issue number>” alongside your commit message.