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--- blog:spring2016:pgrant3:journal [2016/04/04 15:31] – [Mar 21, 2016] pgrant3
+++ blog:spring2016:pgrant3:journal [2016/05/09 20:32] (current) – [May 2, 2016] pgrant3
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 The Friday before break we didn't continue on sockets, but instead we starting looking at kernel commands and reading the bit patterns that have them set to active or not active.  We specifically did the with echo.  We didn't get too much deeper than that but it was certainly interesting seeing how direct bit patterns can dictate commands in the kernel.
+====April 11, 2016====
+It looks like we have diverged from looking at sockets for now.  We have learned a lot about them recently, and their uses are really interesting to me.  Now we are looking at something else that seems like it is pretty interesting in signals.  At this point we have just learned that certain programs can and will block signals, in certain kill commands.
+We starting by running a loop that counts and prints the integer it is currently at.  When a kill command is issued, or a signal is sent.  Depending on the signal, the program will react differently.  This is based completely on what we decide to have it do.  Using the signal function, we are able to block the original signal, and react how we choose to that attempted command.
+The intricacies that happen "under the hood" of our program and kernel, and how the commands are not actually interfaces with the program itself, but the CPU are still sort of mysterious to me.  The more we look at it, the more I am sure I will understand it.
+====April 18, 2016====
+Last week we continued to work on shared memory.  We are doing it in the form of a basic sort of chat room.  Since everything is a file in unix, we are writing to files that others access.  When one person writes to a file, everyone else reads from it.  After messing with in class for a few days we seem to have gotten it working on a basic level.  When one person writes a message to their screen, it ends up displaying that onto the screen of anyone else running the same program.
+Were looking into shared memory on a very basic level.  I am excited to look deeper into it to see where we can go with it.  There is talk of using ncurses to make a paceman like game and have other users control the ghosts or something of that nature while one player controls pacman.  We talked in class about how this was capable of being done on a closed network, and that if you were to open it up to other networks that it would be easy for somebody to do something malicious.
+====April 25, 2016====
+This past week we got our end of course experience.  I can't wait to get started on that.  It brings back such great memories from C programming and Unix.  In all seriousness, I am excited to work on it and see how much I have retained throughout the semester.  It seems like we have covered so much, and at the same time, it feels like we have barely scratched the surface.  I know going forward that there is always much more to be learned.  Now I feel like I have a basic understanding of how to find the information I need.
+This week we have also started looking at and playing with ncurses.  This is the first time I have ever looked at this library.  In class we basically did fancy things with a hello world version of ncurses.  It turns out that it is pretty fun to mess with.  After messing with it in class we were asked to create a program that would move a cursor type character, in the variations of V, around the screen in a spiral, where the V would face whichever direction the cursor was going.  There was something else we were asked to look at but I honestly can't remember what it was.  I think we're going to go over it in class tomorrow though so I think I will be okay.
+As far as the cursor program, when I first started working on it I assumed it would be a giant headache figuring out how to plot where to print to, because thats all that it requires.  It turns out after looking at it and playing around with it for an hour or two, that you only need four sequential for loops embedded within a standard i counter loop, with some variation on conditions based on the i value to get it to function properly.  The only thing that is a little annoying about ncurses is that when you test your program to see if it runs properly, you're just staring at a blinking moving cursor around the screen.  It almost strains your eyes after a while.  Hopefully I don't have the tetris effect of that animation when I go to sleep.
+====May 2, 2016====
+This week starts the last week of the semester.  It seems like it has gone by really fast.  The fastest of the three semesters I have been attending college.  I have taken a deeper look into the end of course experience and am comfortable that I will be able to maintain a solid pace to finish it on time.  Especially since my finals week isn't too rigorous this semester.
+In class we're continuing to look at ncurses and are creating an ncurses pacman game.  This project branches out further in my opinion than any we have done thus far.  We're getting into multi file implementations, which is always nice to gain experience with.  So far we are working on getting the attributes of what we are going to print to the screen finished.  Hopefully tomorrow in class we can finish creating the game field at the very least.  I feel like we can get further than that for sure.
+====May 9, 2016====
+So this is going to be my last opus entry for the standard opus outside of the eoce.  I am working through the end of course experience now and it seems to be going smoothly.  We have covered so much but it is nice that I have so many examples, and can reliably find information on my own to figure things out now in a manner that is more efficient previous to me taking this class.  I am confident I will finish on time.
+Whether or not I will need to come in to class to clear some things up is still up in the air, but hopefully I don't have to make an extra trip up to the college to finish it up.  Going forward I am looking forward to taking data structures.  I feel that systems programming is a nice gap class to have taken to learn a lot of new things, that I will be able to apply during data structures.
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