Udemy - Learn and Master C Programming

I took advantage of one of Udemy's 90-something percent off courses on C and have completed 9% thus far. I am really enjoying the content and delivery method. The teacher is direct and to the point, which saves time. The course tasks end-users with coding as they progress through the curriculum. I anticipate writing about it again in the future. Until then.

C PROGRAMMING FOR BEGINNERS WITH OVER 50 EASY TO FOLLOW HANDS-ON PROJECTS USING VISUAL STUDIO!

By the numbers

• Lectures: 149
• Video: 14 hours
• Skill level: All Levels

• 4,041 students
• Languages: English
• Captions

Harvard Educator Workshop

I am the proud recipient of a limited number of passes to attend the annual Computer Science Educator Workshop at Harvard University. It will be held at the historic campus in June. To say that I am looking forward to three days of geeking out at Harvard would be a tremendous understatement.

Functions...

My best friend is getting married tomorrow, and I'm studying Calculus. A very introductory lesson on functions. When I was in the third grade, I worked with a special ed teacher. She taught me how to use an abacus, and I loved it. That was the only time I recall being excited about math until now. I am so happy to have discovered a fascination with math after all of this time. 

Open one of the videos from Ohio State via Coursera here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/lecture/hAkKN/what-is-the-limit-of-a-product

The Small World Effect...

My wife had a client today who began talking about his line of work as it relates to coding and computer programming. He suggested that I look into X++, which I did. The first result of my first search yielded an article about Microsoft Visual Studio 2017. This is captivating to me because my last post on here was about that exact piece of software!

He loaned me a comprehensive and fascinating book called Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3.

Small world?

MS Visual Studio 2017

I downloaded Visual Studio 2017 from Microsoft. It is a robust Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and code editing application. Subsequently, I added 6 or 7 gigs of add-ons. There's a buzz word they use for it, but I don't recall right now.  I started using it but ran out of time and had to step away from my computer. Now that I'm home again, I find myself once again needing to leave the house. So, I'll have to leave VS2017 for later this evening or tomorrow morning.


   Visual Studio by Microsoft

Computer Science - Footnotes...

During the third week of instruction in CS50, the homework began to present more and more challenges. So, I took a major step backward and began studying a variety of subjects. Rather than fumble my way through, I've decided to invest ample time into learning the language of C. I am also glimpsing the magical worlds of linear algebra, and calculus. After I feel that I have made a significant investment in these areas, I plan to return to my coursework at Harvard and continue moving forward.

I realize that once I obtain the certification, my grades won't be as important as what I learned, but regardless of that, I want to understand things as deeply as possible. I am slowing the process down considerably in exchange for obtaining a meaningful array of learning experiences. Basically, every time I'm hitting a wall, I'm going to the root of my difficulties and studying that subject to some extent.

Stag Do

    I took the train to Dallas and met up with one of the best friends a person could know. We gathered at an escape room venue called Room With A View for his stag party. It was so amazing!! Not only did we get to solve puzzles and follow breadcrumb trails to new clues, but it was on St. Paddy's day and everyone remained sober.

    While on the nearly hour journey to Dallas I read a manual on programming in C. On the way back, I connected to the free Wi-Fi and ran through C coding tutorials. It rained. I got wet. I got to do some walking. Most importantly, I took part in a wonderful celebration of the upcoming union of two great people. I'm so happy for my friend and his awesome bride to be!!!

Work Through Each Problem First!!!!

(Copied and pasted from: https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-fundamentals/supplement/Hfzrw/next-steps)

At this point, you should have a basic grasp on the idea of developing simple algorithms. This skill is one that you will practice as you go through the rest of this book, as every programming problem's key component is figuring out the correct algorithm. We cannot underscore enough the importance of working through problems in a step-by-step fashion. Many novice programmers try to skip over the first several steps and plunge right into writing code. The result is frequently a disaster, which they end up spending orders of magnitude more time trying to fix than they would have spent planning correctly in the first place.

The reasons that novice programmers give for skipping straight to step 5 vary, but a common one is "Step 3 (writing a generalized algorithm) seemed too hard." This reason is quite possibly the worst reason to skip over step 3—if making a correct plan is proving hard, how can you possibly hope to write correct code without the plan? It is better to repeat steps 1 and 2 on more examples until you can find the pattern and write down the algorithm. Another common reason that novice programmers give for skipping the first steps is "to save time"; however, they often then report spending countless hours trying to debug the resulting code. It is well worth ten or even thirty minutes of planning to avoid trying to debug a hopeless mess for multiple hours! 

argc / argv

My introduction to Computer Science class through Harvard is more difficult than I thought it would be. True enough, I should have anticipated that any class at Harvard would be challenging, but one of my character defects is an over-inflated sense of ego, and I made the false assumption that it wouldn't be that difficult. Lesson learned. Despite being an introductory course, I don't really have a background in writing code. I know HTML, but that's a mark-up language and doesn't really count as an actual programming language.

In short, I have stepped away from my intro course and started focusing entirely on the language of C. I'm going to do this for at least several days before returning to the content provided by Harvard. I was able to slowly work my way through the first few assignments, but when tasked with completing the following, I hit a wall. I'm building a ladder.

On the brightside, the following example makes sense to me now!!! A few weeks ago? An hour ago? Nope! Now? Yes indeed my friends!

_________________________________________________________________________________

The name of the variable argc stands for "argument count"; argc contains the number of arguments passed to the program. The name of the variable argv stands for "argument vector". A vector is a one-dimensional array, and argv is a one-dimensional array of strings.

argc and argv - The GNU C Programming Tutorial

crasseux.com/books/ctutorial/argc-and-argv.html

My Photos Reached a New Record on Google Maps!

As a Local Guide and Trusted Google Photographer, these stats mean a great deal to me. 

Why?

Because I know that my photography has helped millions of people around the world!

Developing an Understanding of...

I'm creating this post in the spirit of a leaving digital post-it-note for myself. Perhaps in a few months or a year, I will be updating my resume, and maybe I'll feel it useful to list some of the areas of computer science that I have an understanding of. It's quite likely that I will forget details along the way.  Either way, I am currently studying and gaining a working understanding of C, Java, HTML, PHP, CSS, and Python. I am also becoming familiar with Amazon Webservices, Elastic Cloud Computing, Cloud9, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Git. I'm also navigating streamlined cross-platform source code editors, data science analysis, and software version control protocol.

I'm currently spending as much time as possible; watching videos, working through tutorials, reading articles, and books.

I made some flashcard study sets

At the time of writing this, I have gathered together, compiled and shared three study sets of computer programming related terms on Quizlet. 

According to Wikipedia;

Quizlet is a mobile and web-based study application. It is currently used by 1-in-2 high school students and 1-in-3 college students in the United States. 

Computer Programming Terms by Austin Craver

Hello world!

About two months ago I applied for a Ph.D. in Linguistics. While waiting for a response, I decided that if I was accepted into the program, I was going to begin studying Computer Science in my "spare" time. I was really excited about combining my love of language with my passion for technology.

Be that as it may, I was denied admission to the program. Although I was not happy with the outcome, I accepted and embraced the reality of my situation and kept my focus on the future.

Since then, I have dedicated a good deal of time to watching videos, reading articles, running through tutorials, and so on. I also researched the seemingly endless number of options for teaching myself.

After setting up accounts with a number of providers, I decided to invest some significant time and money at EdX.org.

Open EdX in a new window:
Free Online Courses! Advance Your Career. Improve Your Life.

I am currently enrolled in CS50 through HarvardX. It is a free course that provides the option of paying for a certification route. Pending successful completion of the (very in-depth) course, I will thusly earn a certificate of completion from Harvard.

I am excited about where this adventure may lead.

Cheers,

Austin C.

#include <cs50.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
    int i = get_int("Integer: ")
    printf("Hello, %i\", i)

}