Here is my trinket with what I have accomplished so far:

Here are the milestones that I assigned myself to complete this past weekend:

• Make the data file that I have smaller (so it won’t slow the program down)
• Have the program ask for user input (so they select from either National or State data)
• Have users type “Help” to be directed to a page that gives them more detail about the program
• Figure out how to have the user upload their data that they might want analyzed by my program
• Print the output for the user input. Consider working on the graph, if there’s time

As you can see, I completed most of the milestones that I had set out to complete this weekend. The last one I somewhat completed, but I didn’t complete it to a degree that I was satisfied with. I’m not sure if it’s a problem with my code or with Trinket, but I wrote the code to create a dictionary and print out the data that I wanted pulled from each column. I want to connect it with the regular expression that the user enters into the text box. Side note: Trinket has been acting up for me lately, and I’m not sure if other people are experiencing this same issue, or if it’s just me. I need to remember to ask about this in class.

Making the data file that I had smaller took up most of the time for me this weekend, surprisingly. I worked on Saturday evening for hours as well as Sunday evening simply trying to cut the data down so that my Trinket would stop crashing. I had to accomodate my program so that it was only pulling data out for baby names in the years 2014, since there are thousands of entries per year and no simple way for the data to be sorted through any other way. My goal is to get the program working to the point that I want it and gradually incorporate data for other years so that I can make my program more exciting. I want to take baby steps to ensure that I’m not creating a glacier when I need an ice cube.

I noticed that the problem solving strategies that were most beneficial to me throughout this process were printing the code that I had and writing out extensively what I planned to do before I did it (hence, the intense documentation). This helped me better explore and understand the steps that I was going through, and if I didn’t know what to do next, writing it out (and even drawing a picture of) what I intended to do helped me.

I believe that part of the reason I didn’t complete all my milestones was because of poor planning, since I didn’t realize that it would take nearly as long as it did to sort through the data (I can’t believe I spent two days dedicated to it) to get my program to work. I also encountered some glitches in my code that I need to further experiment with to resolve. Going forward, I am going to create a schedule to help me stay on track and work to complete the milestones that I’m working with for a specified amount of time each day. This will allow me to stay focused, refreshed, and evaluate how I’m progressing throughout my journey. I would ideally like to be relatively done (just a few more edits) with my project by next Tuesday, so I’m going to work to accomplish this.

Here is what I aim to accomplish before next class:

• Have my program print the output for user input
• Create a command for users to exit the project (i.e. something like finished)
• Produce a graph that visualizes the input the user entered. Baby milestones are below to grow to this, and I would ideally like to accomplish any of the 3 before the next class. I believe it might be over ambitious to accomplish all 6 before then.
• Create a dictionary to hold each name and the value associated with that name
• Create a for loop that goes through the data
• For each matching entry in the for loop, add this to the dictionary with the value
• Have the output print the name(s) with either * or some sort of visual symbol equal to the number of counts for each entry
• Determine if I want to place limits on the number of data outputs printed or can figure out a way to be more creative
• After the initial data is printed for the user, allow them to have the opportunity to enter more input