Ayyyyyy! Assessment 1 completed and I killed it! Assessment 1, I feel, was the most important assessment to pass since it lays the mental ground work for not only the language, but for the confidence moving forward. I feel a lot more confident about my knowledge and my ability to actually take the assessments now, and I feel that’s just as important as knowing my stuff. If I knew my stuff, but couldn’t take the assessment comfortably, or become overwhelmed when I get stuck, then that would have been a huge set back. Not to mention a ton more stress with the coming assessments. Regardless, I’m incredibly relieved to be able to put Assessment 1 behind me. One down, five to go.

Otherwise, yesterday, we went a bit deeper into Object-Oriented Programming, as well as explored a couple other programming paradigms conceptually, functional and procedural. After lecture, we started in on our projects. Nailed the first couple really quick, then dove right into building a chess game.

At first glance, it may seem easy to build a chess game, but coding out the underlying logic of each piece, checking to make sure that moves and board states are correct is actually a bit more complicated. We’re also supposed to build a computer AI that formulates all possible winning moves through the use of depth-first search, I believe for every board state possible, which is pretty exciting. Chess is also the first two day project of the program too, so that’s exciting, especially when I’m working with a great pair.

Yesterday night’s homework was pretty fun too. We’re building a Mancala game. I got stuck on the logic for distributing the stones in the right spots and just decided to turn out early for the night. I feel like sometimes that’s the best solution when you’re stuck, to take a break, detach yourself from the problem and come back later. I’ll let you know how this one goes!

Otherwise, that’s it! We got study hall first thing this morning, so I’ll be working on Mancala there, as well as a little bit at home before I head to class.