Week 6

This week we have been learning a lot about the insides of Python in terms of coding advantages. I had never used lambda functions nor packing and unpacking variables in a function's parameters, but it definitely seems to me that, after getting used to such programming standards, a coder's cleverness would benefit significantly. At least, I think that the use of lambda functions are a very elegant and efficient way of quickly solving a problem by coming up with a function on-the-go. I still remember professor Downing's class example where he showed us an entire function, if I'm not mistaken it was to calculate the root mean square error, that was written in several statements, and then, with Python's beauty, was brought down to just the one statement, ha! 

This week we have our first midterm, I really have no idea of what to expect. In my opinion, so far in this class we have learned mostly about coding (and more specifically Python coding) techniques to improve the way one writes programs, but I'm not sure how professor Downing will test this on the midterm. I will probably go over the material we have learned in class and practice by using them in testing programs. But there is definitely a conceptual part to it. We were given a study guide with several key topics from which we can start studying.

On a separate note, professor Downing also gave us a heads up that we need to start creating groups for the project we will be working on. My group and I have started brainstorming about interesting topics we could work on, even though this week's priority is the midterm. I was not able to attend class the day that the project's parameters were explained but from what I have gathered, the first thing we need to to do is choosing a topic that can ramify into different complementary topics. So for example if we were to choose the music industry then we could branch out into music producers, songwriters, musicians, and singers. We will see what we end up choosing.