Jim Stigler
Because the book that I was reading in my last post mentioned stark differences between Japanese and American instruction. I decided to watch this talk given by Jim Stigler earlier this year, and took some notes: Jim teaches mathematics, but…
Teaching Techniques
I’ve been reading this book, Standards for Our Schools, that I picked up at the UCI bookstore. In it, the authors have a section where they compare American educational systems with that of the Japanese. Here, we argue for smaller…
How Compiler Construction Remains Relevant (part 3)
Previously, in part 2, I arrived at the conclusion that the compilers class should focus on the design patterns and software engineering involved in constructing a compiler. I believe that our students would benefit more if the compiler is treated…
How Compiler Construction Remains Relevant (part 2)
At the end of part 1, I said that we, as educators, should “consider requiring a software engineering class that gives students practice with larger code bases, before allowing enrollment in compilers.” I’d now like to rescind that suggest in…
How Compiler Construction Remains Relevant (part 1)
Many students struggle with the compiler construction class here at UCI. I’d like to change that. Let me first lay down some groundwork, by giving some observations that I’ve made about the general lack of software engineering skills. Our students…
Higher-Order Functions in Java
This Summer I’ve been teaching Intro to Computer Languages. It’s a really awesome class, with alot of good material in it. Last week, my students got back the results of their midterms, and were disappointed in their scores. Immediately, I…
Quarter Update
So the quarter finally ended, and I can get back to having a social life over the holidays! The compiler that I wrote was, in my personal opinion, a pathetic failure. Though we were able to generate some x86_64 code…
Presenting Science
Today I stumbled across a somewhat recent post by Luskin of the infamous Discovery Institute. Luskin observes some comments made by Eugenie Scott, in regard to how scientists should portray their results, so as not to be pounced upon by…
The Science of Religion
I recently watched this really nice video of a talk given by Andy Thomson at the American Atheists conference that briefly goes over some of the reasons Why We Belive in Gods. If you don’t wish to watch the video,…
Revisiting Cascade
I did an earlier post about finding a decentralized solution to the Cascade Failure problem. I was fortunate enough to explore this topic a bit more in depth by proposing it as my term project for the Distributed Systems class….