Programming Module 6

 

Programming Module 6

         For this module  I think the biggest hurdle for me was understanding the nested loops.
After reading through the study material from the book, and Esri’s Website the book did a lot better of a job explaining search cursors and when you’re trying to pull data out of a file, specifically a shape file.  Another Method I implemented for this last lab assignment was taking a screenshot of each script along with it’s output in idle before moving on to the next set of steps. This was really helpful for me in order to not only keep track of what I was doing, but also to see how the lab exercise was progressing. I’ve noticed that I’ve become more efficient with my syntax as I’m not getting near as many syntax errors. However the handful of syntax errors I received were just simple typo’s and spelling mistakes.

        Another thing I incorporated was reading through sample images of code that use search cursors and studying or just looking through how the code was set up. Although the examples didn’t exactly match up to what the lab was having me do, the methodology becomes more clear when you see multiple version of it.

         I enjoy keeping things as simple as possible. Of the many examples I reviewed, I saw more complex concepts in looping structures. Defining variables seems to be half the battle when working with file management code.

Even within the loops are multiple lines dedicated to just defining features, paths, and other variables.

This module was in my opinion a little easier than module 5, which might be partly due to the fact that we were working with Search Cursors in mod 5 which provided just enough familiarity with them to get this one done with less struggle.

The last thing that I like to use and it may be a bit taboo, is asking a large language model to explain to me the “why” when it comes to writing lines of code.
Since I was a little boy I’ve always been a very visual learner, so just reading pages and pages of concepts and ideas tends to not be as beneficial as videos, or imagery to learn from. Getting help from ai by having it break down concepts to their simplest form has been very helpful to me.
However I do not use the ai to do any of the work for me, otherwise it defeats the entire learning process and does a huge dis-service to me going forward in my career.

“Sometimes I feel like Michael Scott from The Office television show when Oscar is attempting to explain to him was a surplus is.” In the scene Michael is clearly not getting it, so he says to “Oscar, explain it to me like I’m five.” So Oscar goes on to explain to him using an analogy of a kid running a lemonade stand with mommy and daddy’s money.
As I sit here and recount the scene in my head I still laugh to this day how funny it was.
But I tell that story because sometimes when I encounter a foreign concept I feel so much akin to Michael Scott in that scene. Sometimes breaking things down to their most basic, simplistic versions can help me get a foothold of what I’m learning.