Not much to tell about July, honestly. Things seem to have settled into a sort of new normal, which is... fine... 😄

CPSC 320 has been going well, though it's a bit dry. It is starting to become clear how algorithm design is just "finding shortcuts so you don't have to calculate something". Usually, that's where I find the most problems in understanding. I'll see what looks like a shortcut, but start thinking about all the possible edge cases that don't appear to fit, and just get confused.

So far, the big new stuff is greedy algorithms and memoization/dynamic programming. I think I like the simplicity of greedy algorithms' "don't worry about anything else" style. It reminds me of 110 and "trust the natural recursion". I've seen memoization before, and it just makes sense, but there's something about dynamic programming's "calculate everything from the small case to the big case" that just seems backwards. I know it works, but maybe it's just a aesthetic thing with me. Feels off, you know?

In my personal life, I looked around for a new apartment and found one right next to the university! Which would be great if it didn't seem like social distancing at the university might last for a long time even with a vaccine. In any case, it'll give me a lot more usable space for working from home, and I'll have easy access to the university if I need it.

That's all from here. August will probably be another short update, but September is going to be a big one. Stay tuned!

(Header image by Adi kavazovic from Pexels)