Computer Science BS Journal (CST370) : Week 1

     This journal entry marks the first week completion of my CST370 class. I'm going to be honest, this looks like it will be a tough one. This week we covered a variety of topics in the lectures ranging from and introduction to algorithms, some pseudocode examples, important problem types (sorting and searching, graphs), fundamental data structures, algorithm analysis frameworks, and some puzzle problems. It was a lot to cover in a week one but I believe that it was all necessary for us to learn/review ASAP. I really liked learning about the weighted coin puzzle. It was a basic puzzle but it teaches you how you can narrow down a fake among a group of things, that logic can be applied to many different scenarios. 

    After learning about the coin puzzle I immediately thought of a similar puzzle with light bulbs and switches where you trying and find out which switch turns on the light in another room(3 switches 1 light bulb). Where you try to find the switch that activates the bulb in the least amount of guesses (You can get it in one guess guaranteed). To solve that puzzle you first flip switch A and wait a few minutes then switch it off, then flip switch B. You go check the light. If it's on then switch B is your answer, if its off then you go to the light and place your hand near the bulb and if its hot then you know switch A had the bulb on for some time and your answer is A, and if it's cold to the touch then you know switch C is the answer. A bit of a rant but I thought I'd share that puzzle because I like the logic behind deducing the answer.

    Over all this week was pretty smooth, aside from the amount of content I had to read and learn, and I look forward to what's coming with this class. I really believe this class will give my brain a good workout and get it spinning like it used to. I think I'll start attending office hours this semester so I can get some easy credit for the class engagements and learn a bit from the TA or Professor about solving some problems that are to come. I usually try and solve them on my own the best I can before seeking help but this time around I think I'll get help early so I can understand the logic of some of these puzzles/algorithms.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Computer Science BS Journal: Week 4

  Part One: Set Your Educational Goals  Something I want to achieve by the end of this CS program at Monterey Bay is to have a portfolio full of projects. We learned in the recent weeks that a portfolio is more important than a resume for a programmer and I stand by that. I would like to have several large scale projects completed with my group and perhaps a few solo projects in said portfolio so I may display all that I have learned. My goal? Port-Fillio (Fill out my portfolio). Part Two: Set Your Career Goals      It may not seem like much but my career goals are sort of simple. I want to be a full-stack developer, the company I work for does not matter to me so much as the work-life balance. Traveling is very important to me so a remote job that gives me the freedom to move around is a must. I envision myself with my significant other putting in our hours and then going out to explore a new country we just landed in. This lifestyle has already been attained b...
Read more

Computer Science BS Journal (CST363) : Week 2

 Class: CST363-30_2253 ( Intro to Database Systems) SQL has the flexibility to join tables on any column(s) using any predicate (=, >, < ).    Most of the time the join will use equality between a primary and foreign key.   Think of example where joining on something other than keys would be needed.  Write the query both as an English sentence and in SQL.  If you can't think of your own example, search the textbook or internet for an example. English Sentence: Imagine you are working with a database that stores information about employees and their salary performance. You may want to find the employees who are earning more than the average salary in their department. In this case, you would join the employee table with the salary data table using the salary amount, not the keys, in order to compare each employee's salary with the department's average. Query:   SELECT e.employee_name, e.department_id, s.salary FROM employees e JOIN salaries ...
Read more

Computer Science BS Journal (CST363) : Week 5

 This marks the 5th week of CST363 and things are going great so far. This week we designed a prescription database, practiced transactions on MySQL as well as practiced some SQL in our homework 3 assignment. I had fun making the database for the prescriptions, I still get a little confused when it comes to the 1:1 or 1:M relationships so I had to go back and review a bit to be sure I was correct. Homework 3 and Lab 15 were pretty straightforward but they were good material to practice what was taught to us thus far. The web site  "Use the Index Luke"  has a page on "slow indexes".    https://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/anatomy/slow-indexes If indexes are supposed to speed up performance of query,  what does the author mean by a slow index?      After reading through the article I can conclude a few things.  What is a "slow index"? A slow index is one that exists and is technically used by the query planner, but results in poor performanc...
Read more