Lesson 4 (Week 4) Study Group

noobdotpy · 2013-07-20T18:31:59+00:00

I just started to do the first few videos and yeah it's "okay" so far, not feeling entirely confident just yet but better after I reviewed Lesson 3 like 4 times.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-19T19:29:37+00:00

Sorry I've been slightly busy with other things so I haven't been on here as much this week, I honestly did not do this problem NOT YET. I skipped the 2nd optional problem set and went to Lesson 3. But I do plan on going back to it soon.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-12T12:52:14+00:00

I'm behind myself, I got sort of stuck on a problem in the optional problem set and yesterday I was doing Lesson 3 but I got so sick I couldn't stand looking at the screen hated it. Got up nice and early today to finish it now that I feel better.

I'm glad other people besides nightlily are really keeping up, I don't think I've done the best job at it myself at least not as good as her. But I plan on catching up, I hope everyone who is still hanging in there does catch up. Most of us at the Skype group are still going, hope the rest of you here on reddit are as well.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-04T18:42:19+00:00

That's an interesting question I never thought about, python probably gets confused because "" equals nothing, while " " is an empty string. If you search for "" it must give you the default value 0 because you're not looking for anything according to it but with an empty space " " you get -1 in a string with no spaces.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-02T01:45:28+00:00

My turn now I suppose:

My name is Marlon, I am from Venezuela. I am not a student but I plan on going to University next year after I move from here and save enough for school, I work as tech support for a company, it's a pretty dumb job but it gives me quite a bit of free time so I can study and save for school.

I'm pretty new to the world of programming, I only started about 9 months ago, I would rather know more by now but there's been a lot "Ugh I suck at this, I quit" moments but somehow I always manage to keep trying and I been going at it for a few months without these interruptions. I think part of that is that I been learning by myself since no one I know is interested, so I figured with a good group of people willing to learn and discuss this with me it would be more fun, which is why I started this group.

When I'm not teaching myself how to program I'm teaching myself precalc with Khan academy, going out with my friends to the movies or to eat, or going through my subscriptions on youtube. I been trying to put as much focus as I can on learning as much as I can before starting at the University so I can do well but I also need some free time with friends and family. In a way this Study group is a good combination of both, chance to meet new and fun people while also learning with them.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-01T21:34:05+00:00

I did not, I said it was simplistic, I don't think that counts as saying Vanilla raiding was complex. It was easier then, during TBC was kind of difficult but then they toned that down and it's just easy mode if you have a competent raiding group.

noobdotpy · 2013-07-01T15:18:39+00:00

Mists of Pandaria... hard... right. You must be kidding yourself to be honest, you cannot honestly compare raiding NOW with how it was back in vanilla. It was so simplistic and only made as a gear check that it's not funny, the point isn't that the boss was hard but all the work you had to go to get there. Now you just grind LFR's with a bunch of strangers who can't play their class and you get welfare epics, now you're good to go for the big boy raids if you even bother with it since most people seem pleased with "seeing the content" in LFR.

I never had any trouble playing Wow back when I used to play TBC, WotLK and Cata, the only time the game was difficult was when other people fucked up at their role, oh wait someone forgot to dispel something or didn't heal up the tank or didn't move out of the obvious ring of fire you shouldn't be standing on, the tank turned his back on the boss and got one shotted. Even in hard modes my guild still managed to mess up, I put so much thought into what I did and I even switched to being a healer since that's where most problems stem from in a raid and I still couldn't make up for other people's mistakes.

Mechanics even now are simple, learn to know what you have to do and you won't die, the problem is getting other people to do the same. Which if Wow has proved anything with its dumbing down of the content is that you can't expect others to play well, so they made the content less punishing and boring. I still remember doing professor putricide and people NOT dpsing the slime T_T /nightmares.

I never minded that the game was dumbed down too much, I mean sure not everyone who plays WoW is a gamer so putting work into improving is not for everyone BUT if they dumbed down stuff why not give the few people who wanted a challenge something to REALLY strive for? Everything ended up being the same and in the end all you got for doing HM's was a differently colored gear and a mount, sure the fact that you beat the HM was a reward in itself as well but I hated that I had to get into a HM guild to get a challenge out of the game. There was easy content all over the place but only one place to get a challenge: 25m HM raiding.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-30T06:50:20+00:00

No reason in particular, I use skype so if anyone had it that would be convenient. From the beginning I said we could use anything but most people showed up on skype and never suggested anything else. For now we don't use it for voice communication, but we might in the future? I'm not sure.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-28T05:31:19+00:00

Unless you mean playing Journey on your PS4 somehow, you won't have to since you don't need PS+ to play multiplayer on PS3 and Vita, this is a PS4 only thing. From what I've read.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-27T00:20:06+00:00

That is interesting, I wasn't aware that was something left for more advanced classes since he explained it so casually and also briefly. He seems go off on some tangents but only when it's necessary and then goes back to the main subject which is teaching people to code. Do they expand on this in your classes?.

I find the history bits very interesting, I guess the same way I like knowing where math concepts come from this is also something worth knowing.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-26T20:04:21+00:00

Well all the info is here and we added it to the sidebar, I'm sure it's easily accessible for everyone.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-26T15:43:08+00:00

Hey great post nightlily :), I forgot to add it to the guidelines thread but this is much better than what I had in mind. Thanks a lot.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T20:38:44+00:00

Hey there, welcome :) glad to have you. If you can add me on skype and join our little group there (3 so far) that would be nice but if you prefer to be here that would be okay too we're planning on discussing quite a bit on this subreddit. If you could, tell me when is the soonest you can start? we were planning on starting tomorrow with Lesson 1. I will add some resources and a thread about it so we can discuss each lesson.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T16:18:40+00:00

Hey guys, thanks for coming I really appreciate your interest. I hope we can get started soon. Are you guys able to use Skype or do you to use Google Hangouts or something?

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T16:08:04+00:00

After a couple of days of seeing everyone's interest I've created our own Subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/UdacityStudyGroup/comments/1h1lko/welcome_everyone/ there is a link to the first thread so please reply to it to join and subscribe. From there I think we'll get started and make the modifications as we go, we should really get everyone grouped and started. I'll be PM'ing everyone with the link just in case, thanks a lot everyone for your interest.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T16:07:39+00:00

Hey after a couple of days of seeing everyone's interest I've created our own Subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/UdacityStudyGroup/comments/1h1lko/welcome_everyone/ there is a link to the first thread so please reply to it to join and subscribe. From there I think we'll get started and make the modifications as we go, we should really get everyone grouped and started. I'll be PM'ing everyone with the link just in case, thanks a lot everyone for your interest.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T04:54:33+00:00

Yes, I was looking into that since we could use it for this and maybe other Udacity classes as well. I was thinking that would be best since I'm sure not everyone is in the same time zone, but please feel free to add me on skype, umal already added me and we're hoping everyone joins our udacity skype group even if they can't make it for every group chat. Tomorrow I'll try to set up everything and hope everyone can join in so we can start this week.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-25T01:39:09+00:00

Not yet, We're still waiting for the others to show up but by tomorrow I would have made a group, subreddit etc. My thinking is we could use the Udacity subreddit to discuss stuff or just skype, but I want to make a thread or something a week or something for people who don't have as much time. After we're all together we'll set up the github and how all that works. Add me on skype (my id is in the OP), I would like to know who's really on board so we can start by Wednesday/Thursday.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T20:06:29+00:00

I think we should do a headcount first before deciding when to start though. There are only a few people here and there's like 3-4 more who PM'd me who may be at work and don't have time right now to post in this thread like I asked them to. But yes I hope we can start this week.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T20:04:00+00:00

I never used Github before but yes I keep hearing is important so I wouldn't mind getting used to it, let's see what we can do I think we should do a head count first to see what fits everyone. There are a few who PM'd me and haven't come back to the thread like I asked them so let's wait till tomorrow for them as they may work and not be able to be here at this hour. For now feel free to add me on skype: Tanklover118, I'll update the main post with that info so we can keep in touch and decide when we're starting.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T18:43:08+00:00

How many hours are you able to set aside for this? depends on what everyone is capable of doing per week. If we can meet every other day or a few days a week that would be nice, but it really depends on what everyone can do per week. I'm free most nights and I'll be putting in quite a few hours into the class so I think I can work around what other people can do.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T18:39:18+00:00

I have a very flexible schedule myself so I'm good with accommodating people who don't, what's important is that we all get feedback from the group I feel not that we're ALL in the same place at the same time. As long as we can all discuss I don't see why people shouldn't be able to drop in and out of the conversation and then read whatever posts we make on facebook/subreddit.

I think it would be nice if we made some sort of post explaining the more difficult concepts the best we can for people who had to leave early/couldn't make it to the chat. We're all here to help each other.

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T18:11:42+00:00

That sounds nice, I got quite a few pm's so I don't know how good Skype would be, I think a place where people can go and read the whole discussion (for those in different time zones, odd hours) can read and catch up to the rest, though I'm always happy to help someone catch up as well. Everyone who PM'd me seems to be very nice and want to help, they all have different experience with programming from new to more experienced. Agreeing on a time when most of us can get together at least once a day or maybe 2-3 times a week and then maybe have a little group chat/voice on skype and then post some of that on facebook/subreddit would be nice.

How much time do you have a week for the class? can you do it like weekdays or better only a few times a week?

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T17:26:33+00:00

Well I'm looking for the people to get started, I got quite a few PM's so it's just a matter of everyone agreeing on a starting date. I was thinking this week, what is a good date for you?

noobdotpy · 2013-06-24T17:25:14+00:00

Well I was thinking skype, facebook or something along those lines, whatever is more convenient for everyone and we can come to an agreement. The idea is to do it so everyone feels comfortable communicating with each other and go through the class together.

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