I Object!

Alright, what in the name of java just happened?! 'Objects,' or so they call them, turn out out to be some new data type that are seemingly way more complicated than the  primitive ones. First of all, they require extra lines of code to define its characteristics and behaviors. I had a little trouble getting used to the idea at first, but now its seems fairly intuitive. I can possibly see things getting complicated when I have to juggle many of my own classes and objects. I created a program that creates 3 turtles on the window, and each can be manipulated individually be entering commands on the keyboard (without having to restart the program). Of course, this wasn't actually the goal of my assignment, but whatever, its still cool. Sigh, maybe I should start sticking with the plan. Anyways, I'm curious to find out what else I can do with my turtles besides telling them to move and draw shapes.

- zk : out

Notable Differences

After a whole week of basic java programming, I'm already starting to see some of the major differences from python. First of all, there seems to be more versatility granted through methods that can return  a data type versus methods that don't return anything at all. My teacher says this has to do with java being and 'object-oriented' language, whatever that means. I'll find out soon enough, for better or worse. One thing that I am curious about, however, revolves around the fact that java, along with some other languages, cannot quite accurately use operations like multiplication and division. I don't know how it all goes down in the craziness that is java, but I wonder how an OS itself can have a perfectly functioning calculator application when it is derived machine language. That would be a tough one to figure out, but hopefully I'll get an answer in my lifetime.

- zk : out

From python to java

Last year, I was in my teacher's computer programming class where I learned some of the basics in python. Now that I am in the AP computer science class, I will be focusing solely on java programming, which at this point seems more exciting. I've already powered through a handful of the initial kick-off labs, and they were unsurprisingly simple. The concept of programming and algorithms remains relatively fresh in my mind, but some of the underlying syntax that java never ceases to leave me clueless. From where I'm coming from, there is no context for "static," "void," "public" and other such terms that I hammer out on a daily basis. I am very interested in learning what this lingo actually means, but I also understand that it might be too advanced for the class to learn right now.

- zk : out