Breaking Things

This semester, this whole year even, has seen a dramatic increase in productivity and a conscious effort for self-care-- making necessary doctors appointments, going to bed around 9 or 10 and getting up at 8 or 9 am.

Taking care of myself helps me think clearer, helps me get more done.

I am attending class, I am paying attention, I am going over my notes, I am looking at code samples and breaking them to see how they work.

From my Facebook note:

So I am going through these Keynote files from my intermediate programming in Java class and deconstructing them, trying to understand the code samples and writing down questions. I was going to ask the questions in class but thought, "Wait. Why don't I just run this code and break it to find out why this or that is or isn't a good idea".

So I did. Global variables are a terrible idea in most languages. In this code snippet, he told us it was bad idea to declare val locally:

[java] import java.util.Scanner; public class test { public static void main(String args[]) { Scanner kbd = new Scanner( System.in ); int sum = 0; while (sum < 80) { System.out.print("Enter a number: "); int val = kbd.nextInt(); sum+= val; // i.e. sum = sum + val } System.out.println("Sum is: " + sum); } } [/java] I wanted to know why. So I ran the code. It looped four times with the numbers 3, 5, 8, and 100. The sum was 116. So then I declared the val variable globally:

[java] import java.util.Scanner; public class test { public static void main(String args[]) { Scanner kbd = new Scanner( System.in ); int sum = 0; int val = 0; while (sum < 80) { System.out.print("Enter a number: "); val = kbd.nextInt(); sum+= val; // i.e. sum = sum + val } System.out.println("Sum is: " + sum); } } [/java]

I got the same answer.

Globals during loops = bad idea?

In the second example, I ran the code with 3 as an input and I thought it would go on infinitely and quit the program. But while writing this, I got the idea that it wouldn’t go on after all. So I ran the test again with the input being 80. The sum turned out to be 80, and the program quit. So why did he say this?

Conventional Programming Wisdom

Globals are a programmer’s worst enemy. Globals can lead to bugs that cripple JavaScript apps and I thought the same for Java and, while this test didn’t have any ill effects, it probably does somewhere. But, adding val to the global namespace did nothing to the program.

These are just some of the changes this semester. I want to be a software engineer, dipping my feet into the vast pool of web development then learning things like C, Go, C++, and Swift.

Good News!

This semester, this whole year even, has seen a dramatic increase in productivity and a conscious effort for self-care-- making necessary doctors appointments, going to bed around 9 or 10 and getting up at 8 or 9 am.

Taking care of myself helps me think clearer, helps me get more done.

I am attending class, I am paying attention, I am going over my notes, I am looking at code samples and breaking them to see how they work.

From my Facebook note:

So I am going through these Keynote files from my intermediate programming in Java class and deconstructing them, trying to understand the code samples and writing down questions. I was going to ask the questions in class but thought, "Wait. Why don't I just run this code and break it to find out why this or that is or isn't a good idea".

So I did. Global variables are a terrible idea in most languages. In this code snippet, he told us it was bad idea to declare val locally:

[java] import java.util.Scanner; public class test { public static void main(String args[]) { Scanner kbd = new Scanner( System.in ); int sum = 0; while (sum < 80) { System.out.print("Enter a number: "); int val = kbd.nextInt(); sum+= val; // i.e. sum = sum + val } System.out.println("Sum is: " + sum); } } [/java] I wanted to know why. So I ran the code. It looped four times with the numbers 3, 5, 8, and 100. The sum was 116. So then I declared the val variable globally:

[java] import java.util.Scanner; public class test { public static void main(String args[]) { Scanner kbd = new Scanner( System.in ); int sum = 0; int val = 0; while (sum < 80) { System.out.print("Enter a number: "); val = kbd.nextInt(); sum+= val; // i.e. sum = sum + val } System.out.println("Sum is: " + sum); } } [/java]

I got the same answer.

Globals during loops = bad idea?

In the second example, I ran the code with 3 as an input and I thought it would go on infinitely and quit the program. But while writing this, I got the idea that it wouldn’t go on after all. So I ran the test again with the input being 80. The sum turned out to be 80, and the program quit. So why did he say this?

Conventional Programming Wisdom

Globals are a programmer’s worst enemy. Globals can lead to bugs that cripple JavaScript apps and I thought the same for Java and, while this test didn’t have any ill effects, it probably does somewhere. But, adding val to the global namespace did nothing to the program.

These are just some of the changes this semester. I want to be a software engineer, dipping my feet into the vast pool of web development then learning things like C, Go, C++, and Swift.

Good News!

I have transferred within Pitt, going from the College of General Studies to the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences! I'm thrilled that I can finally be a true Computer Science major. ????????‍????????????