CS 373 Spring 2021 Week 2: Chanakya Remani
Welcome to Week 2 of my CS 373: Software Engineering blog!
1.) What did you do this past week?
This past week, I brushed up my Python skills and also familiarized myself with the files about assertions and coverage for both Javascript and Python, which are on Professor Downing’s website.
2.) What is in your way?
One thing that is in my way is the fact that every Friday, I have to lead an OS discussion section from 10–12 pm. However, since this class meets from 11–12 pm, I am forced to miss the second half of discussion section to attend class and learn! While I am not able to be there for the students I TA for during that time, I am accompanied by 4 other amazing TAs who are able to cover for me.
Similarly, familiarizing myself with Docker has taken me longer than I expected it to, but I am confident that I’ll be able to get into the flow of things once I start using it everyday for the big web project.
3.) What will you do next week?
Next week, I plan on working on the first project, which is a variation of the Collatz Conjecture. This requires me to first familiarize myself with the workflow for the class and using GitLab in general. Once I familiarize myself with that, I will then create issues, start writing code, and also start using what I learned about unit testing and assertions towards verifying the correctness of my code.
4.) If you read it, what did you think of the makefile?
I found the makefile very interesting and something I’ve always taken for granted. It’s very cool to see the different parts of the makefile and how the various dependencies and libraries come together.
5.) What was your experience of Docker?
Personally, I have never used Docker in the past so there was a huge learning curve towards trying to understand from a conceptual standpoint how it works. I have watched Professor Downing’s lecture about Docker multiple times and I seem to be getting a better understanding of it each and everyday. Today, I made a Docker Hub account and completed the tutorial from their website so that’s definitely a start!
6.) What was your experience of assertions?
At my previous internship, I was used a lot of assertions to verify the correctness of the code I wrote. I used them primarily for verifying preconditions and postconditions. I was able to learn a lot more in this class about the pros and cons of assertions in this class, so I am excited to be able to apply that knowledge in the future.
7.) What was your experience of unit tests?
Similar to my experience with assertions, I unit tested a lot during my previous internship. As I was working as part of a search engine team, it was very pivotal to rigorously unit test and ensure good coverage in order to prevent bugs or customer complaints in the future. Similar to assertions, I learned a lot about the pros and cons of unit testing, and I can’t wait to apply that knowledge in this class.
8.) What made you happy this week?
Getting a 100 on today’s quiz made me pretty happy 😂!
9.) What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
GitLab had a pricing change, where it reduced the CI quota from 2000 CI minutes to only 400 CI minutes in its free tier. This could have potential implications in industry and I sure hope it doesn’t affect anything for this class!
Source: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/01/26/new-gitlab-product-subscription-model/
