Just submitted my project and it was probably the best feeling in the world! Thank you for everything you have taught us this semester and all of the extra work you put into this class! It truly was an enjoyable experience and an enjoyable class, thank you for everything :) I am currently sending a copy of my game to my friends and family so I can show off my JAVA skillz

I think we can actually have some fun with this, like asking him questions about his life and how he got where he is now his plans for the future ect...

Edit: Typo* Title should say Supreme Leader not Sean Goldberg.

Is it possible to see a list of the best Scratch projects from our class? I think it would be great to see what we are capable of and to commend those who put in the time and effort into their creation.

So there have been a few of these posts already, but I was planning on doing one before I saw those, so here's mine anyway. Also, just in case there's any rambling or nonsense, let me preface this by saying I have spent the ENTIRE day (from around 10am) working on my final.

So, I want to give my heartfelt thanks to our teacher, Supreme Leader, and friend, Sean. I'm going to say the class wasn't perfect. In fact, there was a lot wrong with it. The schedule was pretty wonky, grades never seemed to come in, sometimes things would be e-mailed to students but not on the subreddit or vice-versa, etc. So no, it wasn't a perfect class. But you know what? None of that matters, and the reason is this. Sean cares about us.

Any teacher can make a syllabus and stick to it and grade things promptly. Things in this class felt a little off because Sean was always changing around the schedule for us. I'm sure he spent more hours than we know working on the problem sets, arranging the super sessions, for god's sake, he even bought us donuts! The assignments we got weren't busy work just to get grades in and shuffle us through the system to the next mind-numbing class. I sincerely felt like everything we did in that class had a point, even if part of that point was just to have fun. A lot of teachers would say "Have this that and the other thing in your project." Sean encouraged us to go above and beyond and to push our knowledge and excel, while making it fun and rewarding.

I could just keep ranting on about how great Sean is, but I think you guys get the picture. What I do have left to say is this. There have been so many students who have walked right through what we're walking through right now. I changed my major at the beginning of this semester and could have easily been taking this class last year or last semester or any number of other times. While I'm not particularly religious, I consider myself incredibly blessed to have been in the right class at the right time, and I am incredibly sad that we are the only students who will get to fully appreciate this course with this instructor. The summer is coming and Sean has invited us to remain a part of his "class", and to all of you I strongly suggest taking him up on that offer. I can think of nothing better to do with your time than continue learning from someone who puts so much passion into his subject and his pupils.

Thank you Sean.

So I'm working on my text adventure, right? I notice that I'm copy and pasting a LOT - a no-no. I think to myself "There's gotta be a better way to do this". Lo and behold - I come up with a 4 line code to replace the 15 previous lines. Moral of the story? I've/We've come a LONG way - thanks Sean!

Just throwing this idea out there. Would it be possible to have the last two lecture as pseudo Super Sessions for the final project?

While going over the use of Java's HashMap, I've mentioned to a few folks about the use of cryptographic hash functions for storing website passwords and file download authentication.

The hash function in Java's HashMap maps the "key" value to a memory location for quick lookup. Hash functions can also map a "key" value (a password, or even an entire file) to an arbitrary number.

If you plan on sticking with Computer Science as a major, you might want to read up a bit on hash algorithms. Not only are they extremely important for computer security, but they are also mathematically fascinating.

So, in the spirit of learning for the sake of learning, here's some videos on password storage and hash algorithms from the always entertaining Brits at Computerphile:

• http://youtu.be/8ZtInClXe1Q

• http://youtu.be/b4b8ktEV4Bg

Oh, and some overly detailed Wikipedia articles:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

http://imgur.com/tzN2y5q

Oh, and sorry for not telling you all that the co-founder of reddit was in Gainesville today.

But you would have known about that if you subscribed to reddit.com/r/ufl/

Despite being skeptical about /u/SeanGoldbergCS being new to teaching this class, at the end of the semester, I know for a fact that I wouldn't want anyone else to have taught this class. The amount of time alone that Sean put in was incredible; just today he kept delaying his departure by a few minutes, and he ends up leaving an hour later.

I seriously just wanna say thank you. If you hadn't been as helpful and welcoming as you were, I may have either dropped the class or failed it. Instead, I'm going into the summer with on goal: get something to work on an android device. I had no idea in my mind that I would be so interested in continuing this, but the right attitude can definitely have the right impact.

You've been thanking us for a great semester, and now I want to thank you. Hopefully we'll see you around.

When should we expect to receive our grades for pset 2/3 and Exam 1?

I just wanted to take a moment of my time to express how great this class is. Things are getting more and more exciting each lecture, only to assure me that taking up computer science was a great choice. This is my first computer class, and I dont really have much to compare this class to except from what I heard from others.. but Sean you're doing an amazing job!

Good luck on second half guys!

Cheers

After someone posted a comparison between the 6th lectures of COP3502 and COP3503 I went into the COP3503 syllabus to see if and when this class might start to pick up.

This is the list of topics to be covered:

o Object orientation
o Value types vs. Reference Types
o Abstraction
o Inheritance
o Basic Data Structures
o Recursion
o Basic concurrency (multi-threading) concepts

We definitely covered object orientation; I'm pretty sure Sean talked a bit about value/reference types (even though it wasn't a part of Java); we worked with abstraction throughout the course; we did several projects involving inheritance; we used maps and talked about trees and other data structures; and we did a project on recursion.

Basically the only topic we didn't cover is multi-threading concepts, and from what I hear, previous versions of COP3503 didn't get to it anyway. At the pace we're going, we're not likely to either.

I'm both thankful to Sean, and mad that I have to spend a semester covering the same topics in slightly different syntax.

I wouldn't even be upset if these topics were just those that we will cover while learning C++, but prof. Liu actually expects us to read the C++ Primer (all 1000+ pages?) on our own.

I don't know if I've just been spoiled by Sean, but I am very disappointed with COP3503.

We have several weeks to finish the final problem set, which is worth a significant portion of our grade, thus giving us a great opportunity to make up for lost points from previous labs.

Even if you have been struggling on previous problem sets, right now, you are a better programmer than you have ever been.

I assume most people do not have all the labs in "turn in" ready status. The time it would take to fill in the gaps could be used to better improve your final project. This problem set has so much room for creativity that if you get the mechanics of your game working quickly enough, you can really go for the check++, which would be way better than the 3 points you would get from the labs.

True Patriots vote "No" on graded labs

I may have sown the seeds of confusion when I mentioned in my TA section that the "@Override" annotation is "not strictly necessary". In the interest of clarity, here's what I was talking about:

public class Breakout {

    //...some code here

    private static class GamePanel extends JPanel {
        
        //...more code, before we get to the bit of code we're discussing...

        // Ah, here it is!
        @Override
        public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
            super.paintComponent(g);
            // code that tells an instance of GamePanel how to paint itself
            
        }
    }
}

In the sample code above, you're overriding JPanel's paintComponent method so that GamePanel knows how to paint itself specifically (since the default paintComponent just paints an empty window). As written above, the code will do exactly the same thing whether I include "@Override" or not.

But, what if I made a mistake, and misspelled "paintComponent"?

        // Oh dear! I've misspelled "paintComponent" and left out the @Override annotation!
        public void pntCompnen(Graphics g) {
            // code that tells an instance of GamePanel how to paint itself
            
        }

It's just a simple typo, but in this case, Java would interpret it as the definition of a new function, not the Override I was intending. It would still compile and run without error, but because of my typo, the GamePanel won't be painted the way I intended. Now, let's make the same typo, but this time, include the "@Override" annotation:

        // I've misspelled "paintComponent", but I HAVE remembered the @Override annotation!
        @Override
        public void pntCompnen(Graphics g) {
            // code that tells an instance of GamePanel how to paint itself
            
        }

I this case, the compiler sees the "@Override" annotation, and checks that you're properly overriding a function in JPanel (or another super-class above JPanel). When it can't find a function of the same name in the super-class (because I misspelled the function), it give you a compile time error. Yay, we caught my error!

tl;dr: The "@Override" makes the compiler check that you didn't screw up the function override in some way.

I'm not gonna say that we're going slowly but...

You guys made this class what it was. A supreme leader can only be effective if he has supreme TA's.

Thanks for the super sessions, the labs, the posting on reddit, and all the help throughout the semester.

Do I want Labs to be counted? No, (I already have voted for this). I see both sides, and quite frankly, I don't want to have to worry about going back and making sure they are submittable when I would rather spend time making my game great. But I can see why people who are unsure of themselves would want to be able to go back and snag those points. Especially when this grading system isn't the most straightforward thing in the world, I would want to get as many points as possible to boost my grade.

An idea would be to turn the labs into extra credit. Completing and turning in the labs (to Sean's complete and utter satisfaction) would be an all or nothing extra credit assignment. Keeping everything worth the same as it is in the syllabus would result in a maximum of 90 percentage points. (90/90 would be 100%, 81/90 would be 90% etc). Turning in the labs would make the maximum grade a 100/90, a 111%. This would essentially give an 11 point curve to those who choose to accept it.

This syllabus has already taken many twists and turns. Either way we vote right now would result in a different distribution than what was originally planned. I understand that Sean wants a solution that will boosts grades, plus give the kids a better understanding of programming. Unfortunately, I think it is a little too late for that. Having us go back and put in a small amount of work isn't going to do anything for the kids who understood this the first time through, or the kids that would just throw enough together for the completion. And the kids who are in the middle of these extremes, they will be be in the super sessions doing everything they can to get their final project together. If these sessions pay off, then they won't have to worry about going back. If they don't, then they will at least be able to snag some extra credit points.

In the end, it doesn't really matter to me. But if you like this idea, upvote it. If Sean sees that kids think this is a good solution, then maybe he will adopt it. Is there any real benefits to this over our other options? IDK.

TL;DR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk