On Friday we took the third and final test, I ended up getting to class a little late due to having an interview immediately before class, but over all I don't think losing those couple of minutes affected me significantly. I thought the test was structured pretty well however I was rather surprised that there wasn't any python on the test at all. After having almost all python for the last two tests the sudden change was rather surprising, though considering we covered the refactoring example almost exclusively in Java it makes sense in hindsight. The one thing about the test I thought should've been changed was the UML questions. I feel that having two questions devoted to that portion of material was overkill.
Over all I enjoyed CS373 and felt that it was beneficial to me. Of course due to my prior experience with OOP I probably had a better idea of what to expect going into this class than others who had never taken a class with Professor Downing before. One of the most positive things about this class was simply the way in which lectures were conducted on a day to day basis. I know I've talked about this in previous blogs (particularly the early ones) but I really do feel that Professor Downing has a really unique way of lecturing, which not only brings a level of participation from students that I haven't seen in other classes but helps you remember things from lecture better. I honestly wish that all the other classes (where applicable) at UT were taught in a similar manner.
On the other hand I felt that readings were a mixed bag when it came to this class. While I did enjoy the Extreme Programming book since it was nice to see a formalized version of the agile concepts that I was exposed to over the summer I felt like the Refactoring textbook was just too difficult to get through (particularly in the early chapters where it felt like Fowler was just pointing out common sense things). This combined with the fact that we went over the refactoring examples in class for an extended period of time and weren't really quizzed over the reading kind of drained me of any motivation to read the material on my own. As for the extra readings, these were hit or miss in my opinion. While I enjoyed some and felt like they were definitely worthwhile (ex. Guerrilla Interview) there were others that I felt were a waste of time (ex. Gender Differences).
If there was one thing I would change about SWE it would be to remove the Haskell portion of the class, I just don't think it was really that useful in the long run, especially since we hardly covered it in the last third of the class and weren't even tested over it in the end. Over all hwoever I do think this class was beneficial to me, and will probably be one of the more useful ones to me once I graduate. I would definitely recommend this class to my friends.
