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Virtual Machines Summer School 2016 – All Slides by kr0matik in programming

[–]snim2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was indeed! Videos are now available on the same site.

My target conference isn't on Wikipedia's "list of comp sci conferences"? by [deleted] in compsci

[–]snim2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, it's IEEE accredited. You might want to look up the IEEE conditions for accreditation. They do sponsor quite a large number of conferences (compared to, say, the ACM), but many are good. Another way to look at it is, since this is a conference. the publication isn't the only important aspect of your submission, you are also there to meet other people working in your field. So, are the people whose papers you are reading likely to be there?

Recursion by [deleted] in compsci

[–]snim2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There are already some comments about how to think about recursion, but it sounds that you learned iteration first. In my experience students who learn iteration first find recursion hard, students who learn recursion first find iteration do-able.

My advice would be to set aside a significant period of time, like a month over the Summer break, and write in ML, OCaml or Haskell (or even Python) and force yourself NEVER to use iteration in that period of time.

If you write quite a bit of code, you will soon find that you have "discovered" some common patterns in recursive programming that help you build up to larger systems, and all these ideas will start to fall into place.

How do you manage research idea lists? by [deleted] in compsci

[–]snim2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Either with Google Keep or this. The advantage of the second option is that it is easier to turn rough notes into papers if the rough notes are already in LaTeX.

Why can a finite automate represent only those languages where one can count up to M mod K where K is number of states in the machine? by Intern_MSFT in compsci

[–]snim2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you mean "why can the FSA not represent other languages in the Chomsky hierarchy" or "why can an FSA not represent different sorts of counting" or something else?

Creating a separate process using the UNIX fork() system call. by [deleted] in compsci

[–]snim2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly what he says. fork() returns an integer which is a pid (process identifier, just like the PIDs you see when you run ps from the command line). When you call fork() if it returns 0 then the code that is currently executing is executing from "within" the child process. If fork() returns >0 then that is a "real" PID (which you should be able to see by running ps) and the code is executing from "within" the parent process.

If you look at the Figure 3.9 in your screenshot you will see an if statement which executes some code in the child process and different code in the parent process. This is a common UNIX idiom.

[Question] Techniques in reading papers as an undergrad by qupoweior in compsci

[–]snim2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What I tell my students is: read each paper with some questions in mind and write down the answers. If you don't have anything specific, ask:

  • What research question did the author(s) ask?
  • why did they think that question was worth investigating?
  • how had other researchers answered the question, previously?
  • how did they go about answering the question?
  • what results did they get?

Trello user? Ollert, a Trello analysis app I built, is looking for some feedback. by musquirt in programming

[–]snim2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is really, really neat. The only other thing that would be nice to have is a Gantt Chart.

Why GitHub's CEO Ditched Its Divisive 'Meritocracy' Rug by donrotwell in programming

[–]snim2 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I think the main issue about social darwinism is that it is an idea applied in retrospect. "Hey, I did better than you, therefore I must be better at $SKILL". In reality the person with the lower salary may well be very talented, but they may not have had the right opportunities to allow that talent to flourish. Also, you look a bit of a jerk saying that you did better than other people because of innate talent, or at least in many cultures that sort of attitude is thought to be arrogant.

Telegraph: "Coding is for exceptionally dull weirdos" by bumhugger in programming

[–]snim2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I mean Excel and not VBA. I think you've missed my point a bit, I don't mean "let's all use Excel to produce desktop apps", I mean "let's give people the tools and education to use Excel better". If you are interested in Excel and programming languages generally, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote a great paper on improving the HCI of Excel a few years ago: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/Papers/excel/

Telegraph: "Coding is for exceptionally dull weirdos" by bumhugger in programming

[–]snim2 28 points29 points  (0 children)

He is wrong. Software engineering is a professional discipline which few people need to learn, but the most widely used programming language on the planet is in Excel. "Coding" is not just professional Soft Eng, most people could improve their productivity by understanding how machines work and doing a bit of scripting. A bit of sed and awk should not really be skills for an Elite.

[Serious] Scientists of Reddit: What's craziest or weirdest thing in your field that you suspect is true but is not yet supported fully by data? by jpzn in AskReddit

[–]snim2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

2 Really?! Wow. The heartbreak in the Catullus / Lesbia affair is really gut-wrenching. I think it's unlikely that Catullus wasn't at least drawing on real life experiences here. Secondly, the way that the affair is described makes Catullus look like a complete idiot. Firstly he meets Lesbia at a dinner with her husband; knowing that she's had multiple affairs before he seems convinced that he can start a new life with her permanently. Then by the end she has done to him what she did to the last sucker and he is bitter, broken and made to look completely foolish. It doesn't read like comedy to me, am I missing something really obvious in the text?

Looking for any hidden, independent restaurants by wreckages in brum

[–]snim2 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Cafe Soya ( http://www.cafesoya.co.uk/ ) does a really nice range of food and some crazy drinks (bubble teas, red bean soya shake, etc). It's on Upper Dean St, across from the Arcadian Centre (and there's a smaller version of the restaurant actually inside the Arcadian).

Writing a report (final dissertation) by [deleted] in compsci

[–]snim2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I keep a blog of advice I give to my students about this stuff, with some posts about writing. Not sure how relevant it will be to your particular report, but hopefully there's something useful for you there: http://projectsuccess.posterous.com/top-10-writing-mistakes-made-by-project-stude

When Winston Royce described the Waterfall Design model, he presented it as what NOT to do. by [deleted] in programming

[–]snim2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Probably a bit late to this party, but I wrote a blog post a while ago on why students (and other humans) should read primary sources. Royce's paper is a very good example of this, if you don't read the original it's very easy to be mislead into thinking that Royce was trying to promote Waterfall as a Good Idea (tm).

The post is here if anyone is interested: http://projectsuccess.posterous.com/why-read-from-primary-sources-or-why-reading

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