Getting to know DrRacket

This is the second week of learning how to use DrRacket. Unlike the first week when I knew nothing about it, this week I started to understand how to use it to define functions. In this week of classes, I learnt that "pic: hacker" and "pic: calendar" are the names of two built-in images. I also learnt that how to make my own definitions, such as the definition of the function lolcatz. One "check-expect" is corresponding to one "define". I can define a picture using a simple expression rather than copying and pasting the image again and again. For example, I can define a picture of apple using "p1".

Also, throughout watching the videos of DrRacket, I learnt some codes for composing pictures and changing the scales of pictures.

In class, I enjoyed watching people doing demonstrations of expressing letters using seven digits of numbers. The activity was fun.

The quiz this week was not hard. But what frustrates me is the history of computer machines. I need to memorize too much information including the time period, the names of those machines. I think I'll take a look at the notes that are posted on our course website and try to understand those things.

Week 1

The first week of class was just very confusing for me because I've never learnt computer science before but it was still very interesting.  I think the basic idea for commanding computers is to use understandable and logical steps to solve problems   using computers instead of human brains. The new things that I learnt were algorithms , some basic codes for commanding, such as: flip- vertical, etc. 

Since I still feel unfamiliar and confused by some stuff in this course, I haven't find any thing that I enjoy doing. The most frustrated thing is to use the program DrRacket. I don't know how to define some of the commands. For example. I wrote "flip- vertical", and followed the steps in the videos but it always told me that the function "flip-vertical" is not defined. I think I need to ask for help for this. 

The codes are not hard for me to understand. They are really straightforward so I feel confident about them. One of my achievement this week is that I set up my CDF account and I downloaded the DrRacket for my OX system. 

I believe that in the following weeks I would get more involved in this course.