CS371p Spring 2021: Simon Xie W2

Simon Xie
2 min readFeb 1, 2021

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What did you do this past week?

For the past week, I mostly focus on getting used to the new semester’s study and work schedule and trying my best to strike a better balance between work, study, and life. I finished all the homework on time; I worked for 10 hours; I had enough sleep; I even had a little time to work on Leetcode every day. Overall, this week is a good one.

What’s in your way?

I haven’t fully got used to the new schedule, so I slept at a different time every day. Sometimes early, sometimes very late. Though I had enough sleep, I felt that being punctuated will help me gain more strength in doing what I am doing in the day and night.

What will you do next week?

Next week I will do the same thing as last week. Maybe I will spend a little more time reading C++ books. Going over what has been taught in the lectures could be helpful as well.

If you read it, what did you think of the makefile?

I haven’t read it.

What was your experience with Docker? (this question will vary, week to week)

I did not have experience with Docker. I took CS373 before but I did not utilize Docker at the time so maybe I will try it this time.

What was your experience of assertions? (this question will vary, week to week)

I knew that assertions are very good tools for testing the code, especially certain user classes or functions. But I have not used them before.

What was your experience with unit tests? (this question will vary, week to week)

In CS373 I wrote a few unit tests for the project, but I would not say I am well-versed in writing them.

What made you happy this week?

I am happy that my class schedule is a fitting one for me, and I like all my classes so far.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

I read an article https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer, written by an experienced pilot and software engineer. The main purpose of the article is to analyze what really led to the Boeing 737 Max air crashes before the plane was grounded worldwide. It appears that the failure of the software responsible for controlling the plane was the culprit of those disasters. As a future software engineer, I find it extremely dangerous when the people who built the software for a crucial industry are detached from the whole designing and manufacturing process.

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