The End of the Year

It's that time of the year again. The end. Comp Sci this year has been beyond fun. It's been interesting  to think about how all the stuff we've learned fits together. Looking back at my earlier blog posts, it seems like I've enjoyed this from early on, and it's something that I still like it now. You keep discovering new things. I remember when I was awed at variable declarations, and then awed by boolean logic. I remember how I was so happy when I made Pong® work. Now I see entire applications, and I can actually understand them and pick apart their workings. It's amazing to see that progress in retrospect, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't start earlier. I feel like I can't major in this in college because I didn't start early enough, but if I had taken this class freshman or sophomore year, I think that computer science would be my degree of choice in college. It just seems like their is no end to learning code. A new need pops up, and it's creativity that births the code that makes the application to meet the required functionality. In economics, what I plan on doing, it's much the same, but it's always money. Computer science can be anything, and that's what I like.
The AP. Oh, the AP. It was easy, but I dislike how they nit and pick and all that. Collegeboard should be petitioned to let kids take the AP in whatever language they want, because I don't think the issue to test is depth of knowledge in a given language, as reference guides abound to help the programmer out. The issue to test is a kid's creativity. I recently saw a sensationalist video on YouTube entitled "14-Year-Old Prodigy Programmer Dreams in Code." I encourage you not to see it. It's about this kid who's really smart and is already in the Colorado School of Mines, and that's cool. But the crux of it is that he "dreams in code." I don't think that's even a relevant thing, as code is an extension of the real world. If you know a language, be it oral languages (English, French Spanish) or programming languages, dreaming in it is just a medium of expressing the inexplicable stream of consciousness that your brain spits out. If you're walking along in your dream with your special someone, and you're outside at night and you realize the sky is starry, you do the following:
English—tell her, "The sky is full of stars."
Spanish—le dices, "El cielo está lleno de estrellas."
French—tu lui dis, "Le cielest rempli d'étoiles."
Java—Object date=new Evening();
            date.setMood(Moods.ROMANTIC);

There is no difference.
But anyways, yeah Comp Sci was cool. Mr. Stephens is a really good teacher and I'll miss him a lot. As far as advice goes, I'm not the best to ask since I didn't really struggle. We should learn more hardware and cool stuff though.