Section 2 - Final Remarks

11B.2.1 A Short Story

Let me tell you a short story. After I completed a Data Structures course, my professor (pictured below) posed a question upon which I was to meditate.

He asked me, "Do you feel smarter? Well, do you ... punk?"

It's a bit roughly worded but applies here, so I repurpose the question.

• Do you feel you have a general understanding of the major Abstract Data Types in computer science and how they are used?
  
  No matter how well you did on the assignments, I can tell you that, for those of you who finished this course, you do have a conversational understanding of the differences and uses of such things as linked lists, balanced trees, hash tables, priority queues and graphs. That's a "yes."

• Do you feel that you have more competence in C++ and the Standard Template Library than you did 12 weeks ago?
  
  Without a doubt, you have incorporated one or more of the STL generics vector, list, stack, set, priority_queue and map in your programs. Moreover, you used const, & and pointers more confidently than when you started CS 2C Another "yes."

• Can you select the right STL tool -- or craft one of your own user-defined ADTs -- when you are confronted with a programming request from your company, instructor or thesis advisor?
  
  I would trust every one of you, either on your own or after a very short research period, to evaluate competing options when implementing a solution to some problem and be able to either defend your choice, or (just as importantly) abandon it if you were presented with a better one from one of your colleaguess.

And that's pretty much it. Without a doubt, you have moved further down the road of being a computer scientist. So you should not hesitate. If one day and without warning, Professor Harry Callahan grabs the laptop on which you're coding, looks you in the eye and asks, "Do you feel smarter punk?" tell him "yes!" Then ask him very nicely to give back the computer.

11B.2.2 Thank You

I have been fortunate to have had some amazingly talented and motivated people -- I'm talking about you -- join me these past 12 weeks. I feel comforted that a few great programmers -- again, you -- are going to be contributing good code, and more importantly, advancing good programming practices in the various exciting professions and environments in which you will be developing software.

So, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Be creative and whenever you have an idea, open your IDE and try it out.