Week 20 & 21

 So, here we are with another bi-weekly post. I did have that quick message with the instructor about maybe branching out in regards to topics here on the learning journal. And, to be frank, I'm still not sure what I was expecting out of it, if anything. According to the instructor, it was designed around the learning science. He did recommend that I at least try to maintain weekly posts, even if it did amount to short recollections of the mundanity of the learning process. 

Still, the seeming mundanity of the course as it is, isn't all bad. I'm finding even mildly novel experiences to be rather exciting. It might not seem like much but this weeks Python code work had a novelty in one of the test files. I'm so used to seeing near instantaneous responses out of these, the fact it took nearly a minute and a half to complete had me thinking I'd somehow managed to deadlock it. Another novelty, The answer being simple and straightforward. I'm so used to answers needing nuance and several lines of code and commands to satisfy their questions, that I grow suspicious when it boils down to a single word. When dealing with bitmaps in databases, every tuple (or 'row') in a table has its own space in a bitmap. And that space has a single bit (1 or 0) saying whether or not that spot is open. When a delete order is given on a row, all that really happens is the one bit going from a one to a zero. And the code is just that simple. Say you wanted to delete row number 102 from a table, in python. Simply execute the line bitmap[102] = 0 and you're done! Inserting it back is just as simple, replace the 0 on the right of the equals sign with a 1, and there you have it! I know that's probably not all that groundbreaking, but it was a very welcome sight to see after having to write out entire methods for other assignments. 

Speaking of other assignments, the final project for CST 363 has opened up and is due next Wednesday. All goes well, I should have that wrapped up before I have to write next weeks journal entry.