Final Entry

What did you like the least about the class?

The lectures and the projects had very little overlap, so I had to do a lot of learning outside of class.

What did you like the most about the class?

I’ve learned a ton about languages and tools that other CS courses at UT don’t really give exposure to.

What’s the most significant thing you learned?

I came into this class knowing very little about how the web worked, but I think I have a much stronger grasp on the fundamentals now.

How many hours a week did you spend coding/debugging/testing for this class?

In my opinion, the first half of the semester is much harder than the second, since the projects become more about optimizing the site instead of building from scratch. I probably spent 15 hrs/week in the first half, and closer to 5 hrs/week in the second.

How many hours a week did you spend reading/studying for this class?

If you follow along with Downing’s lectures, there isn’t much reading or studying you need to do outside of the class (projects aside). It’s immensely helpful to review his HackerRank implementations before the exam, and I probably spent 5-10 hrs doing that during exam weeks.

How many lines of code do you think you wrote?

A couple thousand.

What required tool did you not know and now find very useful?

Flask and React.

What’s the most useful Web dev tool that your group used that was not required?

psycopg2

How did you feel about your group having to self-teach many, many technologies?

It was manageable, but I would rather have learned these tools in a classroom setting.

How did you feel about the two-stage quizzes and tests?

I think these are definitely preferable to one-stage exams. I found the collaboration useful for exploring different implementations.

How did you feel about the cold calling, in the end?

Cold calling was a good way of keeping me attentive during lecture, and this in turn made me more interested in the concepts being covered.