Technical Blog

Problem Solving

When was I blocked on a simple problem?

What was the problem?

I was blocked by the 2nd problem of the 4th kata challenge: Gradebook. In this challenge, we were provided with 2 arrays named 'students' (containing student names), and 'scores' (containing scores pertaining to each student).

The 2nd and 3rd questions asked us to add each students' name as properties within the new object 'gradebook', and then add their scores under a new property names 'testScores', each of which were under the students' names.

My problem was in finding how to add the info into the new object in their new properties while also extracting the information out of the original arrays.

What problem-solving techniques did I use?

Firstly, I tried to think through the steps I would need to take, and tried to visualise it. Next, I scoured the internet looking for different ways to transfer information from an array into an object. Lastly, when I was getting quite frustrated at my lack of progress, I reachout out to Joshua, our facilitator for help. Other students had found solutions to my problm, so between our facilitator and the other students, I was shown the solution.

How did I feel throughout the process?

I felt frustrated at first. I thought that I had a good grasp of how to manuipulate arrays and objects, but this challenge showed me that I still have a lot to learn. In hindsight, I had skipped through other resources that would have helped me in this particular problem.

Upon finding the solution to the problem, I felt humbled, realising that I had been approaching the problem the wrong way. I also felt thankful that I had supportive mentors and peers around me to ask for help.

What did I learn?

I learned that I should make greater use of pseudocode to get my thoughts onto the screen. I also learned that I need to make better use of variables to define more confusing aspects when creating functions. Instead of dealing with multiple brackets to confuse my brain, I can condense the more abstract aspects into easier to read variables. Lastly, I learned not to be self-conscious about asking for help from my peers, which I've always had some problem with.

When I elegantly solved a problem

What was the problem?

The problem was the 'whereAreYou' problem from the 5th Kata challenge 'builtin-methods'. This problem asked me to find Scooby within an array of objects.

What problem-solving techniques did I use?

I followed the advice of the comments within the problem and looked at the test.js file, where I could see that within the array were objects of room numbers, within which were hiding objects, within one of which was Scooby.

I next looked up the .find()method and used it to find 'Scooby' within the hiding object, solving the problem.

How did I feel throughout the process?

I felt confident throughout this process. Looking at previous examples and extrapolating them onto my curret problem gave me a lot of confidence in my problem solving skills. This was a great boost after struggling on a few of the previous challenges!

What did I learn?

I learned that if I stay calm and analyse all of the resources at my disposal, I can solve initially difficult seeming problems.

Reflecting on how confident I feel using each of these problem-solving techniques/processes:

Pseudocode:

3/10 - I didn't make good use of Pseudocode at the beginning, but after seeing how useful it was, and how my peers had been making good use of it, I want to make far greater use of Pseudocode.

Trying something:

7/10 - I feel quite confident at trying something. I feel that if I don't try anything, I will just remain stuck where I am.

Rubber ducky method:

8/10 - I found this method really helpful! While I made a cup of tea, talking in turn to each instrument I was using helped me logically explain it. It was also quite fun having a conversation with my kettle about writing in JS.

Reading error messages:

7/10 - I feel that I got a lot better at reading and understanding what the error messages were trying to tell me over this week's kata challenges. It helped me stumble into how important using 'var' or 'let' is for defining variables!

Console.logging:

10/10 - I feel very confident in using console.logging, and it has helped me a lot through these kata challenges.

Googling:

10/10 - I have relied on google a lot to look up different methods and problems that I was facing. Ive spend far too long trawling MDN, Stackoverflow amongst others to not get a good grasp of how to hone in on the answers and how to ask the right questions.

Asking my peers for help:

8/10 - I've got a lot better at doing this over the last week. I had been self-conscious before, but everyone has been so supportive, and to know that they also struggled at times was somewhat conforting to me.

Asking coaches for help:

8/10 - Similarly to asking me peers for help, I've realised that when I'm in a tight spot, it's always okay to reach out to my facilitator!

Improving my process with reflection:

6/10 - I think I still need to get better at improving my processes with reflection. I can be somewhat stubborn at times and fail to pick up on important lessons that would help me greatly.

Reflecting on a time I was reluctant to ask for help, what made me so reluctant to do so, and what I may try differently next time.

Struggling with my self-confidence

I was initially reluctant to ask for help when tackling the gradebook challenge. I think I was reluctant to do so for 2 main reasons: Firstly, I felt confident in arrays and objects, so I thought that I should be able to tackle these problems without help. Secondly, I saw other students already tackling and asking questions about the next challenges, so I felt self-conscious when I believed others must have tackled this challenge with ease.

In the future, I won't allow myself to feel self-conscious about asking for help. I've overcome this in the past, but it feels that I have to do so again and again each time I begin at a new institution.