We did it!
This semester is over. Now that there’s no “next week” to talk about, I can take this time to talk about the class all-in-all.

Final Thoughts
Overall, this class was awesome. My favorite kinds of non-core class are ones which either effectively foster interest in a new topic, or teach the practices and techniques which make good developers into great developers (or computer scientists, of course). This class was the most outstanding example of the latter which I have ecountered in my years at this university.
Glenn Downing’s teaching style had, among others, two points which stood out to me as incredibly fun and effective. The first was the organization of the class. There was never a single beat dropped throughout the entire semester. Professor Downing’s teaching experience shone through the entire semester, as every single topic was gone through not only in detail, but procedurally in such a way that point led to point until the benefit of some technique was clear and intuitive.
The second point, was the use of various development tools throughout the semester. Of course, the self-proclaimed king of software development tools would have a few things to show us in this respect, and I’m very glad he did. None of my other classes thus far have necessarily cared how I got to a solution or the robustness of that code. Having Downing teach us about real-world practices and tools is what I, more than anything, will be taking away from this class.

As far as the structure of the class goes, I can’t say I’m a fan of attendance policies. That said, I completely understand where this policy was coming from. Besides being forgiving in the cases of emergencies and religious holidays, it mirrors the fact that you simply can’t be absent from the workplace too frequently without suffering consequences. While certainly a useful exercise, I don’t feel that the policy has a place in class. Of course, this is probably due entirely to personal bias stemming from my lifestyle and particular mental state, but I stand by it!
The other major parts of class structure were the daily quiz and participation, which I was, honestly, initially very scared of. However, as the semester wore on, it became clear that I knew about as much as my classmates, varying from topic to topic. As trivial as this seems, this is immensely helpful for what has been called informally and variably, the “real programmer” and “impostor” syndromes. Furthermore, it facilitated the development of that broad sense of community that sometimes comes with well-thought out courses, and despite my initial misgivings, I appreciated it immensely.

Well that was certainly a dense post, at least by my meek standards. What I’m trying to say is that it was fun. I learned a lot and made a couple of friends. That’s it for me, everyone. Enjoy Christmas break, next semester, graduation, etc.
I’ll see you on the other side.
Until next time, friends.