CS 371p Fall 2026: Dhruva Kumar
Which concept from this week surprised you, challenged you, or finally “clicked”?
I think the classes of C++ are finally coming together for me, especially with regards to what C++ gives you by default and the consequences of RAII. This weekend, I’ll continue to review the concepts and practice them with mock coding problems in preparation for the canvas MCQ and the ed lessons on the test on Monday.
How did the collaborative quizzes help you understand the material - or show you what you still need to work on?
I felt better about the quizzes this week. I have begun studying about 30-45 minutes before each class day by reviewing the concepts and then asking ChatGPT to make tricky quizzes based on them. This helps my active recall. Unfortunately I got only 3/5 on Monday’s quiz as I confused the pre/post increment signatures, but I was able to get 100% on both Wednesday and Friday’s quizzes. I plan on continuing to review before quizzes as I have effectively used up all 5 of my drops less than halfway through the course.
Did the programming challenge change how you think about solving problems under pressure?
The programming problem “Guess the Number” was very easy for me compared to some of the other problems. I had been practicing binary search and its invariants of the interval via Leetcode for interview prep, so this problem was a natural extension.
What perspective did the assigned paper give you on real-world software engineering?
The Liskov Substitution principle feels fairly intuitive to me but I am still trying to put the 3/5 SOLID principles we have learned thus far into an example scenario where I can work out how they work together. It is one of things on my list of topics to take a look at, and maybe I can get an AI to explain it to me.
Tip of the Week
My tip of the week is to experiment with some of the existing skill-based agent workflows and see if they are a good fit for you. I am having good results with Matt Pocock’s skills as they allow me to drill into the required spec for the agent before sending it off, and encourage the issue-based workflow we’ve been exploring in class.
I have also heard positive things about Addy Osmani’s skills: