Here is my project code so far:

Here are the milestones that I set out to create last 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

Although I didn’t complete all the milestones that I intended to, I completed the ones that were the ones most pressing to me. Since Trinket was acting up on Tuesday evening, I decided to use this time to review some Lynda tutorials on lists and dictionaries to hone up my skills and seek out some resources to help enhance my coding skills. I think that using this time to do these activities helped me build my confidence and get excited about coding for Wednesday.

The first milestone that I decided to focus on was getting the information from the dictionary that I wanted to print out to actually do so. Doing this part of the code first really helped the dictionaries concept click in my mind, and it was even better when I got the code to work like I wanted it to. Now that I’ve accomplished this milestone, I feel confident that I’ll be able to successfully manipulate my code to get the information and other statistical pieces out of it.

The next milestone that I chose to focus on was getting a visual output representation for my data. This was the part of the project that I’ve been dreading the most, so I decided it would be best to start early rather than prolonging it. I had originally decided to have some sort of visual representation in the form of a graph, but I thought that was kind of boring. I really wanted to do something like the Cowsays thing Elliott had showed us in class but shied away because I thought that it was too hard. However, I decided to just go for it and see if I could find something similar for the purposes of my program. I did! I found an ASCII image that someone had created of a baby from the selection here . I figured out how to incorporate it into the output, and now, a baby prints on the screen.

Part of the reason that I didn’t accomplish all my milestones this time around was because I think I was overambitious. The milestones that I chose to focus on took longer than I thought they would, but they were big chunks. I do think that it was important for me to take care of these while I had the chance, so I can focus on these (hopefully) smaller ones next time.

Here are my milestones for next Tuesday:

• Create a command for users to exit the project (i.e. something like finished)
• After the initial data is printed for the user, allow them to have the opportunity to enter more input
• Produce some statistics from the data that the user has asked for. Baby milestones are below to grow to this:
• Print the mean. To do this, I’ll need to get the sum and total count of values to figure this out
• Print the median. To do this, I’ll need to use the total count of values and put it in the median formula
• Print the maximum. To do this, I could use the maximum function
• Print the minimum. To do this, I could use the minimum function
• Create functions for the above statistical functions