gerp is a program that looks for words in files that are placed in a given directory. It can perform searches for words either case sensitively, or insensitively. This is a clone of the popular CLI, grep, and was the final project in my data structures course at Tufts University.
When being assigned by the course staff, it was emphasized that this project had many correct answers, but definitely some wrong ones. A wrong solution was one that wasn’t fast or small enough in runtime when tested at larger scales. I like this kind of assignment because it encourages one to think about which data structures used in what manners would bring the program down to the reasonable requirements set by the assignment spec. This took a lot of deliberation, working through various examples, and double-checking that algorithms were performing as intended.
At such a scale as this project, a second keyboard would be helpful. So, this was a partner programming assignment, where both partners worked through the code together. This was exciting, as my partner and I both came up with many ideas, through which we came up with many testing scenarios, through which we came up with many errors. With many errors in different cases, it was easily possible to see the problems of the program.
The point is, if it weren’t for my partner and I working together, these various thought processes would have never been generated, and a solution to several bugs would have never been reached.
My next computer science course at Tufts, focusing on machine structure and assembly programming, has homework assignments that are entirely partner programming, and I cannot be more excited!
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