RIP Dr. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie
On exam 1 I was finished in 30 mins and had the remaining time to go back over my answers. For me exam 2 was a little long. I just made my first pass through it when time was up. I didn’t have time to go back over my answers nor to address the 1 1/2 questions I skipped over. Still I think I fared just fine. There were a couple of interesting questions that gave me pause. It’s always a challenge to try and think about questions that might appear on a test. I will keep the first 2 exams in mind when preparing for exam 3 in these last 6 weeks, and, how I prepared for them vs the questions that appeared.
I’ve learned several languages by picking up a book or just referencing online. But there’s nothing like learning a language in a class like this. When you’re just picking up a language on your own or for work it’s easier to just read enough to find what you need to do right at that moment. It’s harder to commit the time to really learn a new language when you’re under a deadline to get something done. I think that article about programming languages is spot on. The last time I was hired in ’96, I was hired to do C++ development yet I had no professional C++ experience at all. It was just expected that I’d pick it up in very short time and I did. I remember very well taking the programming languages course way back when. But C++ is huge and there’s been a few gaps that I’m glad to be filling in. In this class it’s like we’ve been learning C++, and java etc, by picking it up, looking underneath, cracking it open and peeking inside. When I hear someone saying stuff like they only like this language or that one, or they only like this OS or that one, to me, they’re missing the point. They all have advantages and disadvantages. Each one is just one more tool in the box. As a software professional it’s in my best interest to use the best tool for the job. In order to do that I have to be able to readily use any one of them.
I think having a tool like Piazza is tremendous. Heck, I paid about $2k to take this course and I want to get everything I can out of it. I’m surprised more people don’t use it a lot more. I have been getting plenty of questions answered there and I’ll continue to do so. Having ~25 software developers working on the exact same problems is a rare experience. There is much more to be gained here than what is IMHO.