CST 338 - Week 2 - HW01

 For the past two weeks, we have been working on a various assignment that helped us become more comfortable with Java. Assignments consisted of Coding Bat assignments and a homework assignment titled Jotto. 

For the Jotto homework assignment, we were given starter code and had to write code for methods that passed the given unit tests. The unit test that was the hardest to pass was pickWord() and getLetterCount(). The method pickWord() had some influence on other tests, which made it a vital unit test to pass. What challenged me about this method was deciding how to structure the code, so that it did exactly what I wanted. For the getLetterCount() method, I had trouble with checking for duplicate letters and adjusting the score as needed. I was able to get a score, but it included duplicates. After some research and attending office hours with Polina (she is awesome!), I came up with a piece of code that allowed me to adjust the score based on duplicate letters. Once this was completed, I spent the rest of the time getting the gameplay to work, as shown in the examples. This was a challenge that was satisfying once it was finished. I was most proud of being able to pass the unit tests for pickWord() and getLetterCount(). 

From this assignment, I learned a process that I plan to implement for future assignments: First, make all tests pass. Then, focus on coding the rest of the game to its requirements. I now feel more familiar with Intellij, working through troubleshooting errors, and reading the outcomes of unit tests and general coding.