ericwm76/mod_0_session_2_readings.md

## mod_0_session_2_readings.md

      
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    Session 2 Readings and Responses

The readings and responses listed here should take you approximately 60 minutes.
To start this assignment, click the button in the upper right-hand corner that says Fork. This is now your copy of this document. Click the Edit button when you're ready to start adding your answers. To save your work, click the green button in the bottom right-hand corner. You can always come back and re-edit your gist.
1. Learning Fluency by Turing alum Sara Simon (30 min)


 Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
-My favorite line was "To me, creativity and innovation? These things stem from an intense and intimate understanding of a system." It's difficult (not impossible) to come up with new ideas unless you have mastery in the area in which you are trying to innovate, mostly because it's difficult to know which problems need solving.
-I taught entrepreneurship at the high school level, and one of the key skills that I taught my class was creativity. I always found that creativity is enhanced by structure and parameters. For example, I would often give my students a piece of blank paper and ask them to draw a picture. Most of them were fairly unoriginal - a person, an animal, a food, a logo of a favorite team or brand. But then I would give them a piece of paper with a random shape on it, and have them draw something on that paper, and the results were always wildly creative. This is what came to mind for me when I read "discipline before imagination". Creativity requires discipline and mastery, and it requires a knowledge of the structure and parameters of the field and/or problems associated.
-I loved the analogy of coding being like cooking. You have your ingredients/objects, and you have your techniques/methods. There may not be anything earth-shattering about sauteeing, or array methods, but the ways you apply different methods to different ingredients can create beautiful works of culinary or software art.

2. How to Google Programming Problems Effectively by Lulu Li (15 min)


 Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
-I think I already use the "object-verb-language" parameter pretty intuitively. Where I sometimes get stuck is modifying my search if the first search does not turn up useful results. I will work on improving my second search by being more specific.
-I like the idea of opening many tabs from one initial search. Then, go through them quickly and close the ones that are less than helpful. This should speed up the process of searching.
-I haven't been as comfortable using Stack Overflow as I have with reading blog posts so far, because some of the posters and answerers just aren't great writers for beginning programmers. I'm sure as I become more familiar with programming languages I'll be able to use it better.

3. Do Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently? by Umer Mansoor (10 min)


 Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 2):
-What's true in programming is true everywhere: the more you know, the more you know what you don't know. The better you are at programming, the more likely you are to use Google to search out what you don't know, or to make sure you've got it down solid and done correctly. It takes a certain degree of humility and awareness to be willing to ask for help, but that's what brings success.
-Average of 1 query out of every 10 lines of code sounds nice. I'm at about 1 query every 2 lines right now. #goals.

4. 20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently by Joseph Hindy (15 min)


 Briefly describe (in your own words) each of the tips below AND provide an example of a search that captures the sentiment of the tip
Tip 2: Use quotes when you're trying to find words in that exact order. Adds specificity. Example:
Tip 3: Use a hyphen to get rid of words you don't want to see in the search. Example: lima -beans, in order to search for Lima that is not beans
Tip 4: If I know I want to search for something on a particular website, I can Google a search term and then include syntax to limit the search to only that website. E.g., I remember reading an article about cephalopods on TheRinger.com, so I might search cephalopods site:theringer.com to pull it up.
Tip 9: Search for multiple phrases at once using OR. Example: "movies starring Charlize Theron" OR "movies starring Denzel Washington" (because why not?)
Tip 13: Use language that matches the language you would find on a website. If you are searching the World Wildlife Fund's website for information on lion habitat in Kenya, don't search for "where do lions live", search "lion habitat kenya".
Tip 14: Unless you're using quotes to search for a specific phrase, only include important words. Unimportant words will just skew your results a little. Search "best carnitas tacos" rather than "where can I find the best tacos for my brother Jimmy who's coming to town and only likes carnitas"
Tip 17: If nothing good is coming up, remember that people or websites may describe your term using different language. Try again, describing your words differently.

5. Questions/Comments/Confusions

If you have any questions, comments, or confusions from any of the readings that you would an instructor to address, list them below: