Of all my courses this semester, it was quite surprising that computer science was the only one that had a writing assignment. At first I thought it would be difficult, I'm a physical science major because it's easier for me to write it numbers and symbols than words.
Once I realized it was just keeping a blog I relaxed. Being marked on it raises a little anxiety, but I think it will be helpful to analyze myself as a programmer.
Why is a SLOG (the name still irks me) useful?
- Forces me to distinguish what is actually learned
- There isn't much of a need (for me) to take notes in comp. sci. classes, because I learn the syntax and commands best by implementhing them on my own to solve a problem. However, the different topics that I've actually learned can get lost. This forces me to pick them out and explain what I learned.
- Writing a program doesn't leave much of a paper trail
- If you write a program and make a mistake, you go back, change it, and then save over it. The mistakes you made are gone, either to be forgotten about or to occur again and again. A journal can be a document of errors that will stay (if you don't go back and delete yourself) even after you've corrected your program.
- Creeping other people's progress
- I think this is supposed to be called 'learning about other people's viewpoints of the course anonymously' but it feels like creeping to me. Still, it can be useful. One thing I realized quite recently is that university comp. sci. doesn't have any high school prerequisites. I've done most of the course content in Java so the course is learning a new language, not new concepts. The SLOGs could help me understand the other point of view.
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