starcatcher.ca

At Saint Mary’s, C++ has been the de-facto language for Computing Science for the last several years. As a result, the students don’t get much exposure to other languages, like Java (although that’s changing this year, much to the chagrin of certain people in the department, myself included… I am of the opinion that Java as a “starter” language is a bit steep as it expects a lot from the developer, and it’s too easy for a beginner to to get caught in the trap of ignoring all exceptions and all that jazz. But I digress).

This semester, I’ve been tasked with teaching Object-Oriented Programming in Java. While we are spending a lot of time on things like proper OOP techniques and approaches, including (but not limited to) UML diagrams, design patterns, and all that goodness, we also spending time on some of the Java “basics”, like desiging classes, working with interfaces, fun with Swing and AWT, and of course, applets. This week’s recitation had them drawing googly-eyed happy faces, as above. Wheeeee!

Last week I started teaching recursion to my students (for the unaware, I’m teaching a 2nd year engineering computer programming course at SMU; it’s similar in structure to the 2nd half of the 1st year course I usually teach). I’ve never tried to talk about recursion and recursive algorithms for more than one lecture, but this time I’ve gone over several sample algorithms (Towers of Hanoi, QuickSort, palindrome detection, prefix calculator, reversing a sequence of words). I just wonder if there’s a proper way to teach it… I’m sure there is, it’s just that I haven’t come up on it yet.

A little primer: a recursive algorithm is one where the solution involves applying the same algorithm to a reduced version of the problem set. Similarly, recursive functions are usually defined in terms of themselves, and thereby a recursive function will contain calls to itself. Recursive functions are elegant and easy to read, but they are usually complicated to come up with, and they are often more computationally intensive than their iterative counterparts. I have written a blog post about recursion, you can read it by following this link.

The main question is this, though: how do you get people to think recursively? When a problem is defined recursively, it’s not bad. Consider the Fibonacci number sequence. Computing Fibonacci numbers is easy: to get the next number in the sequence, you add the two previous numbers together (e.g., starting with 1 and 1, the sequence would be 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, …). The n^th number in the Fibonacci number sequence can be computed by taking the sum of the n-1^st and n-2^nd Fibonacci numbers, given that the first two Fibonacci numbers are both 1. The Fibonacci number algorithm can thereby be written thusly:

int Fibonacci(int n)
{
  if (n == 1 || n == 2)
    return 1;
  else
    return (Fibonacci(n-1) + Fibonacci(n-2));
}

Ya dig? When I was learning this stuff, I just “got it” after a while, so obviously my profs didn’t know the silver bullet (if there is one). Bombarding them with examples is all well and good, but it only gets you so far. If you “get it”, what was it that did it for you?

At this very moment, thousands of high school students across the country are graduating, only to begin a journey where all their hopes and dreams (and ill-conceived notions of the “real world”) are dashed like the potential of a Milli Vanilli comeback tour.  I know this to be true because Melissa (with her new shoulder-length hair) is at the St Pat’s grad today.  She promised me that she wouldn’t cry; after all, she tried her best to not only teach her kids something about Biology, but to smack a bit of sense into their skulls every now and then.

I got to meet a few of her students last night at an Inter-Faith service at the school.  They’re a lively, colourful bunch, and it was nice to finally put a face to the names that Melissa has spoken of in the past (as I’m sure was the case for them with me).  The service itself was interesting as well: as far as I can figure, its theme was “light”, as in “high school graduates must go forth and bear the light” yadda yadda.  I’d like to think I understand, but usually I don’t.  The evening had a predominantly Christian slant, which is representative of the school’s history and population, with a few touches of Judaism, Islam and Shambhala thrown in for good measure.  The music was nice, with a largish choir singing a few traditional Christian hymns (some of which we knew, including one of Melissa’s favorites, the Prayer of St Francis).

Afterwards we went to Mexicali Rosa’s for supper, where we spent (what we consider to be) WAY too much money on food.  We aren’t going there again for a while.  Next up:  the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo!  Preview show is tomorrow, regular engagements Saturday to Saturday.  I’m missing at least two shows (Tuesday and Wednesday) for various reasons.

After all the dreary nonsense that I’ve been putting up here these last few months, I finally have something enlightening to post about. Melissa found out today that she has been awarded (if that’s the word to use) a probationary contract with the HRSB to teach Math starting in the fall. She doesn’t know where yet, but there are a bunch of positions that she can apply for, so we’ll find out before July. Hopefully not Dartmouth, that’s too far away.

What’s that mean? Lots of stuff… Guaranteed income, yes… Security, yes… Benefits, HELL yes… But most importantly, her career is officially ON. In two years she’ll hopefully have her permanent contract, which will lead to a lifetime of quality work teaching kids that math and science are awesome, but not quite as awesome as Mrs. Deveaux, and don’t you forget it.

I’ve made the big time! I’ve been censored!

Apparently, my loyal readers at St. Pat’s High School in Halifax (where Melissa teaches) can no longer access my website due to some potentially offensive material. Melissa tried to access starcatcher today from school, and found that the site and all its subsidiaries had been BANNED~~! You know why?

Apparently, it has something to due with the subject matter. Apparently, it has something to do with a most controversial subject: THE OCCULT.

Of course, I don’t have a freakin’ clue what my site has to do with the occult. The closest I’ve come to that are my rants on the church, and they’re hardly cause for concern.

Hm. Nothing like letting a machine tell you what you can and can’t read. Because that’s OBVIOUSLY the case, as I can’t imagine how any self-respecting human being would recommend my site for bannination.

There’s been a lot of noise recently about using turnitin.com to detect plagiarism in academic papers, and the IP rights that go along with that. Mike Smit has had a lot to say on the matter, no doubt… Some Universities want it, others have banned it, but there are some times where you just have to use a little elbow grease to get the job done.

During the CSCI1227 final exam, one of the invigilators told me that she suspected some students of cheating, but she didn’t bring it up to me until they had already left, so it was too late for me to really do anything about it (I was asked to give them 0 anyway, but without the hard evidence it’s not easy. It’s not like the students did well on the exam). In any event, I get an email from one of the students the other day asking if his mark could be reviewed… I allow students to re-submit an assignment, and if it affects their grade, I’ll mark it. I hadn’t re-marked this student’s assignment (meh, I said), and he asked me to look at it. Of course, I’m inherently suspicious of people I don’t trust (obviously), so I had a look at his assignment. What he probably wasn’t counting on was that I have access to electronic copies of ALL assignments submitted this year. I also have access to “grep”, and I have a very good sense of what’s “unique” in a program. These things together means that I’m VERY good at spotting cheaters in a programming course. Suffice it to say, had he known that, he might have written the assignment himself rather than submitting something that someone else had already submitted. Idiot.

While a system like turnitin.com might violate the IP rights of students, a similar system to go through CS programming assignments to detect plagiarism (either by analyzing the format/syntax of the program, or by string-matching) would go a long way towards making the job of a marker a whole lot easier. We had a discussion yesterday that writing such a piece of software would make for a good software engineering course project… And the irony of using a student’s project to detect their own malfeasance is a delicious prospect.

Can programmers who were introduced to the artform via the Java programming language really cut it? Joel Spolsky addresses this in this very interesting article, and I have to agree with him. I am definitely of the opinion that first-year students are definitely babied by the CS curriculum nowadays (mainly because there are so many non-majors taking it as a science requirement at SMU, for example). The argument goes that more students in the class == more money for the University, but in the long run, the University’s reputation for producing top-tier programmers is going to suffer.

I remember having this kind of discussion with Norbert a few months ago. Do you go hard on students now (by being tougher in classes/having stricter admission requirements) and ultimately increase the quality of research and graduates that an institution produces? Or, do you go for a lower standard of student and rely on numbers? In my opinion, while Dalhousie and SMU are still consistently producing some top-tier graduates, the number of really good students coming out of there has probably not increased as dramatically as the number of mediocre students graduating.

I remember when I took first year CS at SMU in 1995. Dr. Scobey had garnered a reputation of being a hard-ass on his students, to such a degree that only around 40% of the people who started the year actually passed the course. That was what University should be about: kicking people’s asses and making them work, making them think, and not High School v2.0.

After all these years, I’m finally graduating from Dal! I know I’d finished all my stuff (courses, project), but until I saw my name on the grad list, I couldn’t be 100% sure.

But now I have. And now I am.

Tonight was my 10-year High School Reunion at Pacifico (as much as I love the place)! I decided to go mainly because I figured that if I didn’t go that I would regret it down the road. I didn’t expect any of my friends to be there, and I was right, for the most part. Nevertheless, we had a good time, even though we only stayed until around 11:30PM, and the turnout was NOWHERE NEAR what they were expecting. Thanks to Natalie and Lester for organizing everything, and here’s to hoping everyone else had a good time too!

(I didn’t take many pictures… for more pictures, go to the CHDHS Flickr group. They’ll show up there eventually)

Project presented on Thursday, passed with minor revisions (as usual)… Presentation was good by my standards, which says a lot since they’re usually quite high. All’s left now is to finish these revisions, get them in by Friday to have them “signed off”, and Norbert can hack at it again when he gets back next week.

Also, I passed my insurance agent license test on Friday (doing much better than I thought I did), which means that I start training on Monday. More on this one as it progresses… I’m sure I’ll have a lot of interesting stories to tell (and I probably will tell some of them, leaving out personal information to protect people’s privacy)

As mentioned earlier, my project presentation has been delayed until the 6th of September.

Woops! I find out today that the 6th is a no-go, since the University forbids presentations/defenses during that week. So what happens? My presentation gets bumped ahead.

To Thursday.

And this, in the middle of project report revisions. The lock on the computer room door is in place, I’ll see you all again in a few days.

I’m presenting my project today.

No I’m not. Due to factors that should have been within my control, my project presentation, originally scheduled for tomorrow, has been cancelled. Probably for the best, seeing as how I’ve got so much on my plate these days that I don’t know which way to turn. All I know is that I have to play catch up with other stuff, especially with my start date at my new work looming within the next couple of weeks.

Interestingly enough, my project presentation date has been rescheduled for September 6th, 2005. Neat, that I would effectively end my university education exactly ten years to the day since I stepped into my very first English Comp class at SMU.

Started teaching at SMU again. I love 227, especially the latter bits with the overloaded operators and pointers and stuff, and I think I did ok tonight. I wonder if any of my students will visit my site? Couldn’t be any worse than the time someone posted the picture of me from my bachelor party wearing the feather boa and the pimp hat on the class message board. THOSE were good times.

Of course, that picture isn’t around online anymore, not that I’m terribly embarassed by it. I’d like to think that I can stand up for anything I’ve ever posted. I’ve gotten some flak from time to time, but by and large I’m comfortable with my impact on the Net.

Oh yeah. Since I was teaching, no Tattoo tonight.

Melissa graduated from the BEd program at MSVU today. It was a proud moment in Dunphy/Deveaux family history, especially given all the shit she’s gone through at the Mount over the past two years. Fortunately, in a stroke of good luck, they DIDN’T make a mistake in her name on her parchment, and they pronounced her name clearly and correctly. And we had KFC for lunch, so it was a good day.

Of course, in one final kick in the arse, today she found out that her teacher’s license was issued back in early April, but the Mount was holding on to them until now. So, she could have legally been teaching this past month and not working at the hospital. Way to go, MSVU! She’s on her way out, and you STILL figure out a way to take one last shot!

And I know the picture of her getting her degree conferred upon her is blurry (I took it from my seat, stupid me didn’t think of getting closer), but she doesn’t mind as she says it’s “representative of the time she spent there”. The funniest moment for us was when someone (the Chancellor? I don’t know) was speaking about how the new grads were to go out and promote the Mount, all I could think of was that Melissa would be doing the exact opposite, and looking across the auditorium, I could see her laughing and shaking her head.

It’s been a long 20 years of going to school!! Now you can get set for a career of going… to… school. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

I get that from the wife all the time, but it’s really sinking in now.

Got my first “High School Reunion” email this morning. Yep, Cole Harbour District High School, class of 1995, that’s me. Hard to believe it’s been ten years since then. Ahh, the memories. Grade 11 sucked it, but grade 12 wasn’t too bad. Made a lot of good friends while I was there, and then I turned around and pretty much lost every one of them. I used to refer to that phenomenon as my “bi-annual friend turnover”, where every few years without fail, I’d lose ALL my friends and make some new ones. The phenomenon largely continues to this day, as I don’t communicate with most of my friends from Univ anymore.

Thanks to those friends I’ve had for more then 3 or 4 years for sticking it out! This blog sure makes it easier to let people know what we’ve been up to.

Oh yeah: if you’re a CHDHS alumni, go to chdhs.com and register. It’s an alumni-run alumni site, complete with message board and customizable bio and the ability to post pictures for everyone to see. And, best of all, it’s absolutely FREE (barring a few non-intrusive ads), unlike those shitty classmates.com or reunions.com or whatever that charge you to do pretty much anything other than sign up or see who elese signed up. Tell your friends! That is, if they went to CHDHS, of course.

Even though I don’t mention it often, I am a Grad student at Dal, still. To those of you who knew me when I started, no, I’m not done yet. Give me a couple of months. I’m feverishly working on a top secret project that involves databases, trees, and a guy named “Hilbert”. Ok so it’s not so top-secret, but I am working on it.

When I’m not posting meaningless drivel here, at least.

I substituted for Dr. Scobey in his Data Structures class (CSC342) at SMU this week. He’d told me last year that he was planning on going on a Blues Cruise in Florida, and asked if I would be available, and I said sure. I wasn’t sure as to what I’d be doing, but I wasn’t too concerned.

I found out a couple of weeks ago what I’d be doing. I’d be doing a bit of a refresher on pointers, and segue into sequences of linked nodes. For non-programmer types, that’s all a bunch of hoo-hah, but that’s not the interesting point.

It’s a topic that I’ve usually covered in CSC227 when I’ve taught it. Ok, fine. Here’s the kicker, though: his 342 class this semester is made up of mostly 2nd year students. Most of whom took CSC227 with me last winter/summer. So, it’s like deja vu all over again for these guys! The same damned material, the same damned slides, the same damned INSTRUCTOR!!

But I had fun with it, and it all went well. Of course, I got puzzled looks when I talked about insertion into a sequence of linked nodes, and I got VERY puzzled looks when I talked about recursive link sequence creation and other recursive algorithms. I must say that I enjoyed it, though. My only regret is not getting far along enough to cover binary trees, because I really enjoy that. Oh well, maybe another year. Dr. Scobey has suggested that I teach the course in a year or two, so who knows, maybe I WILL get to teach all this stuff!

Kinda hard to believe I got that Parallel Computing paper finished. I don’t think I did well on it, mainly because the problem seemed too trivial. Hopefully it’ll get more complicated when I work on it for the big project come January.

In any event, I’m done with classes. Got an A+ in my Algorithms class, which wasn’t much of a surprise (nice to know that we got 100% on our Traveling Salesman Problem project; I feel somewhat vindicated). I’m done with 226, exams marked and the marks submitted to the registrar… Now, like I said, all that’s left is to do my project next month. And of course to find work, that’s always the kicker.

Still waiting to hear back from SupportSoft, will look more on Monday. In the meantime, it’s super-ultra-relaxo time: time to catch up on my rasslin’, time to play some gee-tar, time to do less than I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, IF that’s even humanly possible. Look up “SLOTH” in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure you’ll see my picture.

I’ve had two presentations at school in the past two weeks. One went very well, and the other, not quite so well.

Last week, I had to present an application I’d developed along with Keith Slade (another grad student at Dal) that demonstrated various algorithms that provided approximations to the Traveling Salesman Problem (see this link for examples). The reason the presentation went so well is that Keith is an excellent speaker: his flow was perfect, as was his knowledge of the subject matter, and we back-and-forth’ed very well for the duration. It was one of the smoothest presentations I’ve been involved in at University so far.

Today, on the other hand, was a different story. I did a presentation of my progress so far in my project to develop some sort of compression mechanism for Parallel ROLAP datacubes. This compression algorithm is a merging of Ng & Ravishankar’s Tuple Differential Coding algorithm with the Hilbert space-filling curve. The goal of this implementation is to achieve reasonable levels of compression, all the while retaining a balanced workload over the processors involved in a query.

I felt relatively comfortable with the material, but my presentation this morning was downright awful. I was constantly watching the clock, stuttering and losing my train of thought repeatedly. I played the whole thing over and over again after the fact, thinking of how I could have organized things differently, how if I could have brought up fact X it all would have made more sense. Hopefully it won’t affect my final mark much.

I guess University’s all about highs and lows, and these were prime examples of both. Oh well, at least it’s almost over.

School’s cancelled today, which wouldn’t be much of a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that it was supposed to be Melissa’s first day in her practicum at QEH. So instead of her taking off this morning at 7:15, we went back to bed.

I know she definitely appreciates this extra delay… Her master teacher was expecting her to start teaching tomorrow, and she hadn’t even set foot in his class (let alone met the guy) until yesterday. A little unreasonable, especially since she’s supposed to be teaching Oceanography (her binder has the caption “Oceans 11″, so of course I had to make some obligatory George Clooney jokes). Nevertheless this is definitely good for her, and hopefully she’ll be able to convince him to hold off on making her teach until at least Monday.