So here’s the first official post you could say.
And well, the first week of the 100 Day DSA challenge I put on myself.

I really underestimated how much time to dedicate to blogs, ‘cause I was already learning stuff for the first time — and with the blog to juggle too, I wasn’t sure how to manage it. I guess this is something that I’ll learn with time, and I need to plan this out.
Right now as I’m writing this post I’m actually done with 2 weeks of the 100 days, but for the sake of uniformity, I’ll be doing week-wise blogs.

The Week 2 blog will be up soon as well :D
I’ll try to finish writing that quickly too.

Enough 'bout that rant — it was just a little brain dump because I felt overwhelmed with everything I chose to have on my plate, but like you know how there’s that saying:

**“Can’t complain about having so much on your plate when your goal was to eat.”
**And girl, I wanna fucking devour.

Week #1 Mostly Just C++ Basics

Week one consisted of just studying the basics of C++, since DSA is to be learnt with respect to an object-oriented language.
And C++ is in the upcoming semester’s syllabus, so it made sense.
Even though my first preference is Python — it just feels better, yk? Smooth, intuitive, doesn’t throw cryptic errors that sound like boss fights.

Sidenote 1: I hate this language(C++), I love python, I find it so easy and fun, like I’m just enjoying it, yet C++ had to come first. I am not THAT upset bout it just… ok no I am very upset with it, because I will literally be working with python later eventually, my projects would be made using python, since i am gonna be doing data science, and who tf cares bout C++ man.

Don’t let my hatred for the language stop you from learning it though, I’m just very strongly opinionated bout this.

Ahem, moving on..

Day 1: Flowcharts and Pseudocode

As easy as making a dirt house in Minecraft

It went through like a breeze.
Basic intro stuff: what a flowchart is, what pseudocode means, and why we use it.
A smooth start that gave me false hope for the rest of the week.

Day 2: Variables, Data Types, Operators

First-Time IDE Setup: The g++ / gcc Errors No One Warned Me About

I had to install C++… which meant more installations…
And because I’d just gotten my laptop fixed and wiped, everything — from VS Code to MinGW — had to be set up from scratch.

And dude, **I HATE INSTALLATIONS.
**(Unless it’s a video game — then I’m hype, skipping around waiting for it to load.)

But THIS? This fried my brain.

I followed a tutorial.
Installed the right things:
✔️ VS Code
✔️ MinGW
✔️ C++ extensions
✔️ Code Runner
✔️ Prayers and patience

BUT NOPE. Errors.
Compile this? Can’t.
Link that? Nah.
My code just wouldn’t run. T-T

So turns out:
I was using gcc (meant for C) to compile C++ files.

Hence, I was getting error messages like:

undefined reference to WinMain@16

undefined reference to std::cout

And VS Code? Just kept yelling in red.

After digging and tweaking .json files I didn’t even know existed (shoutout tasks.json and settings.json), I finally realized:

→ .cpp files need to be compiled with g++, not gcc.
→ Or else it just throws a tantrum about every single std:: thing not existing.

I changed my tasks to this:

"command": "C:\\MinGW\\bin\\g++.exe"

And in Code Runner settings:

"code-runner.executorMap": {

"cpp": "g++ -std=c++17 $fullFileName -o $fileNameWithoutExt && $dir$fileNameWithoutExt"

}

And then it worked :’)

Sidenote 2: Okay fine, it wasn’t that bad — but I needed an excuse to bed-rot dramatically, and this annoying setup process really pushed me. Like hello??? I was already taking emotional damage trying to study in a language I don’t even like, and then this hiccup just made it worse.

Day 3: Conditional Statements and Loops

Peace Returns (kinda)

I came back with a clearer head (and no expectations), and finally figured it out:
C++ uses g++, not gcc. That was the only real issue the whole time.

Once that was done, things were smoother.
I started writing simple programs, making notes, and the compilation finally started behaving.

Learnt bout the if, else-if and else statements, and then the 3 different loops, the for, while and do-while.

This flowed easily for me cuz we had C taught to us in first year itself, and the only major difference i found in the two was the input/output statements and the setting up process side-eyes C++ set up for VS Code. Well to be fair, I had used DevC++ for C so the set up wasn’t nearly similar.

Also, why does do-while exist,

Ok uh my bad that came off rude,

But is there anyone actively making use of this loop??

Day 4: Patterns & Functions

It gets a lil monotonous after this

According to the playlist I’m following, these two topics were meant to be done on different days — but since patterns was a short lecture and I had plans to go out with friends the next day (yes, I do touch grass sometimes), I doubled up and did both the same day.

In patterns we just made use of loops to print various kinds of - you guessed it - Patterns, like triangular shapes or, a design of sort, the main purpose of this was to build logic to be print repetitive patterns.

And in the next lecture I learnt ‘bout the different functions based on parameters and return type, its kinda like different types of coffees if you ask me, some have cream, some don’t, others might be hot or may be iced.

Depends on how you want it, but they all serve the same purpose, caffeinate you. Like functions, there are different types but all they are at the end of the day are a block of reusable code.

Chill study day.

Day 5: Touched Grass

Barely a week in and I'm slacking already?

To be fair, I had already covered what was scheduled for today, the day before.
And idk what symptom of ADHD this is, but whenever I’ve got something planned for later in the day, I just… kill time until that event arrives. If that makes sense?

So I did what I usually do, except — no studying.
Woke up an hour before noon, made myself a smoothie for breakfast, then hit the gym.
After lunch, I didn’t feel like doing anything productive, so I just curled up with the novel I’d started a few days back.

**~Time skip
**Suddenly it’s an hour before I need to be out the door.
I RUSHED through getting ready and yeah… I was a little late. But hey, it was a fun evening — had some good ramen, some soft serve, and the day came to an end like that.

And just like that, we slip right back into the routine.

Day 6: Binary Number System

Tryna make sense of the computer's mother tongue.

Well even though we learn these languages to make softwares out of, it isn’t enough for the computer to make sense of it, it still isn’t the language it understands.

That’s where compilers come in — they’re not just notebooks, but more of a translator, transcribing our code into the 0s and 1s. Because that’s all the machine knows at the end of the day, to see whether the signal is ON or OFF. It’s literally all the machine cares about.

And yeah, each character or symbol we use? It has an ASCII code that gets broken down into binary — like:

A = 65 = 01000001
B = 66 = 01000010
and so on.

This was a theory-heavy topic but kinda fascinating once I let it sink in.
Not fluent in binary, but not completely lost anymore either.

Day 7: Bitwise Operators

Last day of the week yay :D

Today was pretty chill — just a short study session to officially wrap up Week 1 and round off the basics of C++.

I covered bitwise operators — kinda like logical operators, but they work on the binary values of elements with a little extra flair. Unlike my usual 2 hour study block, I was able to wrap up this session within an hour with some practice problems, nothing much, but it counts nonetheless.

Just like that week #1 is wrapped up.

That’s 7 days checked off of 100.

It went from a smooth start to a few frustrating undefined reference errors.

One thing I definitely won’t be breaking my head open for the C++ set up and won't have to deal with VS Code’s tantrums.

Let’s see if Week Two is nicer… or not. Either way, I’ll be writing about it.

There’s A, B but I’m on C (More like C++)

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