Week 5: Reflection of My First Month in CSC104

    Before taking this course, I didn't know anything about computing/programming. All the machines and tools we use every day involve programming and it's amazing to know how these programs work. I've learnt that the pretty pictures are composed by array (glowing dots) and most machines involve boolean. I am also surprised that I can actually do some calculations with programming software. For example,

> (+ 1 2 3 4)
10 

> (< (3 4) or (4 5))
true

> (exact -> inexact #i5.0)
5

> e
#i2.718281828459045

> (round e)
#i3.0

    Since I am a beginner in computer science, I've found that the codes are pretty hard to be interpreted. I have to go through every video at least twice every time and in order to have a better understanding and application, I've played around with DrRocket with the codes and tried working on different combinations of codes. It's pretty interesting sometimes, but whenever I get stuck, I become super confused that I always keep bugging my buddy for help.

    For example, a part of codes in "the rotating fish":

(define (check-key im k)
  (cond
    [(equal? k "down") STOP]
    [else im])

Even though the instructions have already been quite clear, it has taken me a while to visualize the process.


    After taking this course for about a month, I appreciate and respect the scientists and inventors a lot more. It's still hard to imagine how much work they had done and gone through. As the systems are written under algorithm, every step has to be clearly stated; it's hard to imagine how many codes the system has run when we are just clicking one single button on the keyboard. Without doubt, it's a bless to be born in this generation and being able to enjoy the convenience brought by our technology, especially after knowing the machines and computers used in the past.