February update

Post #16 Too many topics!

I've been working on a couple different topics these past couple of weeks and now I think it was a bad idea to spread myself thin. I hadn't been able to make a blogpost of a topic in depth.

Here are some of the things I've been learning.

Pandas with Python with Corey Schafer

In my previous post (#15), I learned how to make various plots with matplotlib. To make these plots, I was using a csv file. To get the csv data to plot, the instructor was using only a couple of pandas functions. To learn more on how to use pandas, I watched the same instructors youtube tutorial on pandas. I did not go through all of the video lessons, but it has helpful so far. So far, the topics I learned from the tutorials are on dataframe and series basics, indices, and filtering. There's much more to learn, but the filtering was the main thing I wanted to learn so I would be able to create multiple plots of series in matplotlib. I'm sure there are better ways of creating multiple plots from a csv and I'll learn those in the future.

Data Structures and Algorithms

I didn't understand what "Big-O notation" was until reading on data structures and algorithms. I watched the first lesson of MIT opencourseware course 6.006 Intro to Algorithms and I understood most of it, but it did take a couple of rewinds to understand some parts. I didn't think I was ready for the course so I began reading Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures using Python by Brad Miller and David Ranum. So far, I've gotten to stacks section.

Leetcode

I've started some Leetcode and at least try to do one problem per day. However, there has been days I've done 3 problems or not one at all. Lacking some consistency. I actually tried the first problem called "Two Sums" a couple of months ago while still on HackerRank. That question was difficult at that time with my limited , I did not continue with leetcode and stuck only with HackerRank. I think that the easy questions on leetcode is somewhat more difficult than HackerRank easy questions. Need to write a future blogpost that compares my experience with Leetcode and HackerRank.

Dragon Quest Monsters database

There is a 1997 Gameboy game called "Dragon Warriors Monsters" (also known as Dragon Quest Monsters Terry's Wonderland in Japan) from the Dragon Quest franchise. I've been planning to make a database website with Django for it (with perhaps MySQL). It has a interesting gameplay breeding mechanic that requires a complicated database table. I've been constructing csv files of it with all the information of the monsters, spells, and breeding table in both English and Japanese. I think this is a perfect personal project, although I doubt it would help anyone as this game is very outdated and most likely not that popular.

Although I've shotgun spread what I'm learning, I think my main problem is still consistency. I'm not working on all of these things everyday like I should be.