Class one reading notes

How to solve programming problems

Common mistakes

• improper allocation of time
  • understand the problem before writing code
  • keep it simple

1. Read the problem completely twice.
2. Solve the problem manually with 3 sets of sample data.
3. Optimize the manual steps.
4. Write the manual steps as comments or pseudo-code.
5. Replace the comments or pseudo-code with real code.
6. Optimize the real code.

Read the problem completely twice

• most important step
• read the problem many times when necessary
• if you can’t understand the problem you can’t solve it
• nothing can be automated that cannot be done manually

How to think like a programmer — lessons in problem solving

1. Understand
2. Plan
3. Divide
4. Stuck? Practice.

5 Whys: Getting to the Root of a Problem Quickly

• used for troubleshooting, quality improvement, and problem solving
• Counterintuitively, 5 whys involves seven steps:
  1. assemble the avengers
  2. define the problem if you can
  3. ask the first why: why is the problem occurring?
  4. For each answer generated during step 3 ask ‘why’ four more times - not unlike a child who asks why repetitively
  5. Unlike the child, know when to stop asking why
• the five in 5 whys isn’t really important
• go further than assigning blame
• develop countermeasures
  1. Address the Root Cause(s)
  2. Monitor your measures

Lecture Notes

Node Runtime

• Runtime is a place for code to run
  • most of the time JS runs in the browser
  • somethings can be done only in the browser, some can be done in node
• Node has different concerns than the browser
  • Node gives the developer a lot more power
  • What is my computer doing (and other machines) > what is the browser displaying