Tag: programming

Work work work

youtube.com/watch

Just checked the first commit date of the completely renovated Data structures and algorithms course repository. It was around December 2020.

Since then I have designed and implemented about ten exercises with unit tests in Java. And two course projects with unit tests. Plus about ten additional demos with Swift. All with commentary and instructions.

In a week the new course begins. I’ve recorded about 20 hours of new lecture materials. Additional videos about graph programming with C++ will be included from last year demos.

One of the reasons for not posting too much lately ?

The video is about one of the course project implementing a graph data structure with various algorithms including Dijkstra’s shortest path finding algorithm. I thought applying this in a game context would perhaps motivate the students to dwell into the world of data structures and algorithms. We’ll see….

Programming as a mental activity

shapeof.com/archives/2020/12/brain-activity_of_people_coding.html

Interesting post and the article there, and something I agree with.

…coding task mainly activated the so-called multiple demand network. This network, whose activity is spread throughout the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain, is typically recruited for tasks that require holding many pieces of information in mind at once, …

I hold the different things required to implement “a thing” in my mind somehow visually. The different items and places of code are in a three dimensional kind of a map in my mind. Difficult to describe this, but this 3D kind-of-a-space is a good enough description. Then I need to keep in my mind information which parts are still not finished, which have issues to solve, and how they connect to each other. This mental map is then somehow connected to the IDE where the action happens in text editors, but that is not my actual “map” of the thing under construction.

Programming is different. If you haven’t tried it because you think you suck at math, you should try anyway. You’d be in good company (I suck at math too).

Agree with this too, personally…