Session 2 Readings and Responses

The readings and responses listed here should take you approximately 60 minutes.

To start this assignment, click the button in the upper right-hand corner that says Fork. This is now your copy of this document. Click the Edit button when you're ready to start adding your answers. To save your work, click the green button in the bottom right-hand corner. You can always come back and re-edit your gist.

1. Learning Fluency by Turing alum Sara Simon (30 min)

• Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
• According to the article, fluency is to be very familiar with something. This is best acheived by studying and repetitve learning of the matierial. At Turing, I plan to dedicate some time before the class day to study upcoming matierial, and some time at the end of the day to review the material given.
• Our diverse backgrounds have taught us some of the skills necessary to learn coding languages. The author indicates that her study of Chinese had helped her learn the value of repition in learning something. I actually studied Spanish as a second language in Costa Rica for six months. That taught me the value of immersion as a great tool for gaining familiarity with it.
• Quote from the article - "Understanding doesn’t build fluency; instead, fluency builds understanding."
• Another quote "Innovation isn’t just trying something new. It’s when you know something, when you understand something so purely, so innately, so in depth. When you’ve reached its fluency, and you’ve become ready to manipulate it." Creativity comes after a lot of hard work and discipline in trying to understand something.

2. How to Google Programming Problems Effectively by Lulu Li (15 min)

REPLACEMENT ARTICLE: How to Use Google to Solve Your Programming Questions

• Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
• Make sure you set the google search results to those published within the last year (for most cases). Developments occur normally in this industry
• use quotation marks to search for very specific phrases
• I can run image searches (which I had no idea I could do that!) to find an image that is similar to what you are looking for

3. Do Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently? by Umer Mansoor (10 min)

• Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 2):
• Quote from article "experienced (and good) programmers use Google… a lot." I will be using Google quite frequently. I am actually comforted that this is considered normal in the industry. I learn best by trying thing and failing - and then learning from those failures about how to (and how not to) do something. When I can't figure out the solution myself, I am happy that I can also rely on other people who have failed just like me and seek guidance for what a possible solution could be.
• I will also NEVER blindly accept any solution that I find somewhere else, whether it be from a website, fellow student, or even mentors and professors. It seems that the best rule is to always question and always second guess.
• I should also accept that I will never know everything or maybe never feel that I am an excellent coder. If this keeps me humble and always guessing (and googling), then that is a good thing. That seems like the best way to learn!

4. 20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently by Joseph Hindy (15 min)

• Briefly describe (in your own words) each of the tips below AND provide an example of a search that captures the sentiment of the tip
• Tip 2: Use quotes when googling something. For instance, if I google: Avengers Engdame non-spoiler review, the search may pop up with sites and articles that contain spoilers for the movie because the search looks for content that matches my searched words, but not in the specific order that I typed it in (spoiler reviews may pop up). If I google "Avengers Endgame non-spoiler review", then the quotation marks will ensure that I only receive search results with exact word-for-word phrase that I googled, increasing the chance that I will only come accross content that is non-spoilery.
• Tip 3: Hyphens serve to exclude words in google searches. For example, googling: coffee shops -Starbucks will come up with search results that do not mention Starbucks
• Tip 4: A colon will let me do a search in a specific site. For example, if I google: Game of Thrones site:ew.com , then I will only encounter articles about Game of Thrones from the Entertainment Weekly website
• Tip 9: Use OR to look search for multiple things in a google search. For example, if I google "things to do in Vail" OR "things to do in Breckenridge", then I will encounter results that have either (or both) phrases.
• Tip 13: Use words in a search that you would find on a website, which are typical words found in that profession. For example, in order to book a flight to Buenos Aires, you wouldn't search "Tickets to get to Buenos Aires". You would search "book flights to Buenos Aires"
• Tip 14: Use only important words in google searches and keep the searches as simple as possible. Otherwise, you might make it harder to find what you are looking for. For example, googling "blackened salmon recipie" would like lead to better results more quickly than "recipie that shows ingredients for blackening salmon"
• Tip 17: Try rephrasing your google search if you are not finding what you are looking for. For example, if you are trying to find tickets to see a Taylor Swift concert in Denver, and you are not finding any good results with: Taylor Swift concert tickets Denver, then you may want to try: Taylor Swift tour Denver

5. Questions/Comments/Confusions

If you have any questions, comments, or confusions from any of the readings that you would an instructor to address, list them below: