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Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

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Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#52
You don't have to pass GATE in order to write a compiler, parser, etc. In fact I'd venture to guess that many of the most famous programmers of compilers and creators of new languages (e.g. Larry Wall) couldn't pass the GATE exam. So don't feel bad if you don't understand any of the math, I'd rather learn by programming and then learn the math to explain it as I go along.

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#53
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is a bit like the Someone Else's Problem phenomenon. Nobody needs to know about compilers, operating systems or analysis of algorithms because Somebody Else will deal with those things.

The fact that writing compilers is an academic fetish does not imply that compilers are written by academics.

Some are, some are not ;)

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#54
post #45
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did we get the atom bomb and the internet?

Internet story is mostly a fairytale, specifically modern stupidity of "fathers" shows this. They were just riding on the wave of something that everyone were experimenting with at that time. A-bomb was about pulling some people away from academia, not building it by academia. "Built by academia" result is something we can see with colliders.

Next time we need a project the size of A-bomb, we might also pull some people from academia and industry. Then they will take some obscure area of research on Prevalence of Memetics in Mating Habits of Extinct Species of Dung Beetles done 50 years ago by an old fart with tenure (and his 20 underpaid grad students) and build a psychodelic control system that can quickly and efficiently enslave and zombiefy large human populations.

TLDR: you never know what you'll need in the future. The only correct way is to research everything and we need a system for that.

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#55
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did we get the atom bomb and the internet?

The perception of people in academia is that innovation is the product of knowledge. That may have been true in the US. It has been true pretty much nowhere else (not for anything else, the real world is rarely so kind as to present solutions on a plate). Korea, to name the best example, takes education extremely seriously...and they have had severe difficulty turning that into innovation (outside the chaebols, there…

The problem in India may be more to do with the teaching style (i.e. rote memorization does not produce understanding) than the content being taught.

And the right answer might be a combination of academics and real world application, instead of an either/or dichotomy.

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#56
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But despite not using it every day, you'd probably be able to refresh on it pretty quickly. I've found that to be the real value for a lot of the courses I took. Sure, I don't actively remember the content or use it daily, but occasionally something reminds me of something I learned. Then, it's a quick wiki page away from me understanding and using it. Contrast that with some devs I've worked with who haven't seen su…

on the interview for the job I have right now, they asked me a lot about design patterns. I took a class on that and implemented a lot of them in Java. Factory, Facade, Visitor, Singleton... Never used them again after college, ask me about it, I think I would be able to explain Factory and Singleton from the top of my head, the rest... gone!!! I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would love to be that guy with a…

You never use a Factory or Singleton? That’s weird to me cause I use them daily. But certainly Singletons can also be problematic, especially if you do automated testing, which I do not.

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#58
post #46
post #43

I need to defend theory of computer science here, it seems. Please note that this computer science , not computer engineering . The idea of automata, regular languages, turing machines, and whatnot inform some of the most fundamental results of computer science . At least in the fields where I work [compilers, formal verification], all of the above theory is common parlance. Everyone working on this stuff knows all o…

Some people are more inclined to theoretical concepts, some people are more practical. Both have an understanding on how things work and/or an intuition, either by studying theoretical concepts or via practical, hands on experience. My issue with this, and this is mostly my own personal opinion, is not whether or not this subject is important and that we need to defend it, but whether teaching it to students of that…

Yeah! And why come we gots to teach kid how to plus and minus if theys just gonna be a plummer?

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#59
post #41
post #37

Watched a bit as I never came across these terms.. Staring at the wikipedia page of "Regular language" and I still dont get what is the purpose of this. Anyone, not in academia preferably, using this for practical applications? What ARE the practical applications?

I don't think there are a lot of direct practical applications, outside of regular expressions for string search as others have mentioned. This is a building block to more advanced topics, some of which have practical applications. Theory of designing programming languages, and computational complexity theory. For instance, these are like baby steps toward P vs NP.

DFAs are used on all kind of things, including on protocol design and implementation.

Re: Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video]

#60
post #43

I need to defend theory of computer science here, it seems. Please note that this computer science , not computer engineering . The idea of automata, regular languages, turing machines, and whatnot inform some of the most fundamental results of computer science . At least in the fields where I work [compilers, formal verification], all of the above theory is common parlance. Everyone working on this stuff knows all o…

Eeh... automata, languages (of all kinds, not just regular), grammars, complexity, etc. are used in computer engineering all the time.

If a computer engineering degree does not have those, then it is a pretty bad one.

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