MARIO MORE, THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS CONQUERING YOUR FEARS
Mario More is the first optional problem in the Problem Sets of CS50 Introduction to Computer Science course. Many students prefer to ignore it and just get on with the course. For many others, not solving this problem is becoming a moral dilemma and something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives…
So there you are … lying on the couch in front of the TV and getting ready to relax completely by watching some good movie that will allow you to forget for a few moments your hard days as a Harvard student (online and not paying a penny, but a Harvard student anyway, and to hell with anyone who says otherwise. OK, OK, relax, relax).
You deserve this break, everything is ready. You have popcorn, pizza, an ice-cold beer and your wife is busy reading a book, your seven years old kid is already sleeping, so no one can disturb your inner peace.
You browse the Netflix catalog looking for something interesting to watch tonight and suddenly … “The Social Network” appears to ruin your night!!!
Your breathing stops … and you start to sweat and to remember that there’s something that’s really haunting you and you know it… Yes … is the optional problem of Week 1… Mario more …
After you fought tirelessly to solve Mario Less, you felt like the king of the world. You were able to overcome the first real CS50 programming challenge and the satisfaction was indescribable, but you won’t be able to be happy if you don’t solve Mario more.
Yesterday you tried to start with Week 2 and a recurring thought was constantly coming into your head … It’s more important to get the certificate or its more important to learn how to really program … But … What if all of a sudden these Harvard guys get tired of giving out so many free certificates and suddenly start charging?
Then you start to imagine David Malan, Brian Yu and Doug Lloyd, watching you from a cloud like in The Lion King and telling you: … Remember who you are !!! … don’t worry man we are not going to start to charge … learning how to really program is more important…
Wathever … you turn on your phone and open the course … the message next to the problem really pisses you off. “Mario more comfortable.” What the heck does it mean … it means that i am a “less comfortable” man? or what!!! you think.
No way!!! you scream out loud and your wife who in fact already thinks that you are a little bit nuts, asks you to go to sleep.
You know that today is Saturday night, you know that this is the only chance you have to relax, you know that you won’t go to bed before 4 a.m. if you start to try to solve this, and tomorrow you will wander around like a zombie but you decide to face the problem.
Don’t worry, I’m here to help you think step-by-step about how to deal with these kinds of problems and to make you feel better. So start by reading the tutorial and subscribe to our blog.
Good luck future Software Engineer.
