CS373 Fall 2020: Jonathan Randall
Hello, friends! I welcome you to my blog: Week of 28 Sep — 4 Oct.
What did you do this past week?
This week felt like both a marathon and a sprint combined! I began by meeting with my project group as we figured out our hosting, backend, and frontend. Despite the many hours of work we all put into this project, I feel positive about how we delegated responsibility. Phase I may not have been perfect, but I’m proud of the website we created and of what we accomplished.
Outside of this class, I finished up a rocky homework assignment for my data science class. I have to get better (and faster) at writing proofs!
What’s in your way?
I am nervous about Phase II of the project. I have some idea for what we’ll improve visually; we will add more interactivity to the tables. Figuring out the backend and API calls may be more difficult. Testing will be fun, I’m sure.
What will you do next week?
On Tuesday, I prepared a heck of a supplemental instruction lesson for CS 314 students! Going back over topics in data structures, from Big O to interfaces, isn’t too challenging, but sometimes I struggle with remembering the syntax.
It’s a little nostalgic for me, and a little traumatic, too — I was in a pretty bad place when I took CS 314. I also feel sympathy for all the freshmen who are taking classes from home, and might feel distant from their classmates.
I also plan to work on Phase II of the project — remind me to make a separate branch. Finally, I’ll try to study as best I can for exam 1. Going over past notes and quizzes seems like a good way to tackle this test.
If you read it, what did you think of Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?
Silicon Valley is without a doubt an unwelcoming environment to women and people of color, with huge gaps in employment and too many stories of sexual harassment. The criticism of “quick fixes” like unconscious bias training is necessary, but the article does not thoroughly examine how Silicon Valley helps to maintain inequality outside of the workplace.
How do companies like Apple, Amazon, Uber etc. affect marginalized individuals who aren’t in technical or managerial roles? Or those in the Global South? If sexism, racism and imperialism are irrelevant, or worse, instrumental to the profit motive, how can we ever get investors and decision-makers to act instead for the greater good?
What was your experience of iterators, reduce(), and tuple?
I love Python’s syntax for iterators. It’s like a cleaner enhanced-for-loop from Java. Reduce() may wind up in a future answer to coding questions. Tuples are important mathematical objects, so it’s cool that Python handles them natively.
What’s it like working in a group?
It’s been rewarding, though sometimes difficult. Coordinating with a group can add additional time to a project, but delegating tasks is necessary to completing any big task.
What was your experience of the team contract?
It was pretty easy to write, since our group communicates well.
What was your experience of the peer review?
I dislike peer reviews for most projects. I don’t think I’ll ever tattle on a classmate for not pulling their weight. For this project, it wasn’t an issue, though.
What made you happy this week?
The weather has been really pleasant. I saw Tenet, which was funny.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My pick-of-the-week would be Amazon Amplify. It provides built-in tools for continuous deployment, which sped up the workflow of our group.
