Week (6/)7/8 Markov End-of-Semester Reflection

         While the Markov assignment seemed daunting upon first viewing the assignment requirements, this revisiting of the task reveals a much simpler project than the caliber of code work that now occupies my mind. Firstly, having dove into the various design patterns that CST338 covers I now am curious to identify design patterns in code prompts. In this case the various methods of the code serve to "build" chains of text collectively into what could be argued to be a Builder pattern. The Builder pattern is categorized as a creational design pattern and thusly suggests how the code will best be formulated. Functionally, this mostly serves to inform the bigger picture as during the process I was heavily focused on following the prompt in more of a "flying blind" styled approach. 

        In terms of how I would approach this project differently now, I can never stress enough that homing in on each of the respective required methods at a very granular level has been invaluable for my process. I hope to continue gaining confidence in taking a prompt at its word and carrying out the code-writing with a foundation of context and experience that allows for precise and meaningful effort while also having a more well-rounded perspective on how the code should be working on a collective or global level through its design pattern.

        While this isn't Markov related, this class has also redeemed my perspective on Object Oriented Programming. Dr. C and TA Polina served to measurably demystify OOP and I now have normalized working a single project across several Java files. The context that lectures and reading materials provided on using static versus instance variables and why this is important for encapsulation have expanded my scope of the code writing process. Somewhat similarly to how access modifiers can impact the vulnerability of an Object and are crucial to encapsulation, static and instance variables can define what is happening globally or granularly within the code and serve to protect encapsulation for constants that will need to be maintained throughout the program. While many concepts and details have flown by across this couple of months, I generally am experiencing a new and stronger internal coding foundation on which I can approach upcoming challenges with keener insight and more nuanced strategy.