CST 338 - Software Design - Week 2

 

For this week’s CST-388 class, our focus was on programming a Jotto game. If you're unfamiliar with Jotto, it's a word guessing game where the player tries to guess a randomly selected word from a list of five-letter words within six attempts. This assignment marked my first deep dive into a substantial programming project, which proved to be quite challenging.

The program we developed involved implementing getters, setters, and additional methods to facilitate gameplay. Working on these methods took up a significant amount of time, especially as I struggled with getting them to function as intended. Testing our code with the provided JottoTest.java file introduced an additional layer of complexity. One particularly challenging aspect was the pickWord() method, which caused the test to enter an infinite loop. Despite the program running smoothly in the Drive file, debugging this issue took considerable effort.

After identifying and resolving the bug, I revisited the program and successfully passed most of the tests. However, there were still some methods that required refinement to pass all tests. Ultimately, overcoming these problems was immensely rewarding, and I feel better equipped to tackle future challenges.

In addition to the Jotto assignment, we began working on other projects such as the Markov program and the Pocket Monster program. The Pocket Monster program appears to be even more challenging than the Jotto game, while the Markov program presents similarities to the Jotto assignment. I'm hopeful that with continued practice, I'll become more adept at problem-solving and encounter fewer obstacles during testing.