Professor solves 240 computer science exam problems in 4 hours [video] • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by m463 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #50

bollu wrote: 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…

A lot of people give theory a lot of crap. But that's normally because they are not comfortable with the material. If you are comfortable with the material, you see applications for it all over the place, and use it all the time. Sure, you don't have to ground your system in some kind of formal model (you can just code-til-it-works), but when you do I've found it always ends up as a far simpler and more resilient pro…

I think people are ready for things at certain times.

I think history class was wasted on me in high school because I was a kid and didn't have much life experience. But years later with a better grasp on human nature I think I would have had a better grasp.

Another example is a foreign language class. I took it in middle school, in high school and later in college. I learned lots and lots of theory for many years. But only when I went to another country did I learn I hadn't learned.

I think theory needs to be combined with: experience and practice.

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

#92

Post by bollu » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #87

bollu wrote: 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…

> The fact that one does not need this during their day job is, dare I say it, irrelevant. I disagree for some of the fundamental things. Binary arithmetic is fundamental. The number of times I have seen people using addition for logical-or and being confounded by bugs astounds me. I don't expect you to be able to do stupid bit tricks. However you must know how to use and,or,xor,not for masking and you must understan…

I agree; My personal view is that it's fundamental to know these ideas, just as one can't be a physicist without knowing a decent chunk of mathematics.

On the other hand, it seems that biology majors seem to "get by" [as far as I can tell] without needing to learn much math. Perhaps one can argue that it's better if they learnt more math. But we can't argue that the profession of being a doctor seems to work without them knowing too much math.

It's unclear to me, where in the extremely broad spectrum of jobs known as "programmer" [writing code for the space shuttle v/s bringing up an android app] where the need for mathematics ends. So I hesitate to make blanket statements about this.

What I will never hesitate to defend is the utility of these ideas of theoretical CS/mathematics for all computer scientists and scientist-adjacent folks.

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

#93

Post by learc83 » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

ookdatnog wrote: post #77

bollu wrote: 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…

I empathise with people who go to college to study computer science, mainly with the intent of eventually landing a well-paid programming job, who are then frustrated when they have to learn actual computer science topics instead of just learning to program. But their anger is usually directed at the wrong institution. The problem doesn't lie with academia teaching the wrong things, it lies with companies requiring C…

I use CS theory all the time in my professional career. Automata, was the most useful class I took (the 2nd most useful was Programming Language Concepts).

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

#94

Post by prostoalex » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

ookdatnog wrote: post #77

bollu wrote: 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…

I empathise with people who go to college to study computer science, mainly with the intent of eventually landing a well-paid programming job, who are then frustrated when they have to learn actual computer science topics instead of just learning to program. But their anger is usually directed at the wrong institution. The problem doesn't lie with academia teaching the wrong things, it lies with companies requiring C…

There's a bunch of commercial prep courses and coding bootcamps that focus on applied programming.

I wonder how long-term those skills are, reminds me of companies teaching MCSE certification a few decades ago.

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

#95

Post by ianbooker » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

We had a quite strong formal / theoretical community in our cs department, and besides really enjoying automaton theory in my later studies, it kind of formed an understanding of the practical side of researching algorithmic questions like "how to fit multiple circles into one bigger circle to maximize their combined diameter", as a reservoir of solutions you could later abstract your less abstract cs problems to.

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

#96

Post by walty » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #93

ookdatnog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathise with people who go to college to study computer science, mainly with the intent of eventually landing a well-paid programming job, who are then frustrated when they have to learn actual computer science topics instead of just learning to program. But their anger is usually directed at the wrong institution. The problem doesn't lie with academia teaching the wrong things, it lies with companies requiring C…

I use CS theory all the time in my professional career. Automata, was the most useful class I took (the 2nd most useful was Programming Language Concepts).

What do you do professionally? How do you use automata there?

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

#97

Post by vkou » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #88

ookdatnog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathise with people who go to college to study computer science, mainly with the intent of eventually landing a well-paid programming job, who are then frustrated when they have to learn actual computer science topics instead of just learning to program. But their anger is usually directed at the wrong institution. The problem doesn't lie with academia teaching the wrong things, it lies with companies requiring C…

We spent entirely too much time on O(this) and O(that) But that's the stuff that sort of stood up to the test of time. Also really helpful was symbolic logic, which actually was not a computer science course. The most interesting computer science topics to me in school were the different computer languages -- but very few of them survived the test of time.

In my bachelor's degree, I spent two weeks of one course, tops on O(this) and O(that).

I suppose I spent two courses studying computational complexity, but reducing it to O(this) and O(that) does not quite do it justice.

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

#98

Post by layoutIfNeeded » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #62

Interesting how so many of these problems are probably hard for a fraction of the people that want to pass this exam simply because of the language in which they are expressed. For example, and I've noticed this pattern with some regularity: large and complex expression in a paper or some other document. Actual implementation: one or more for loops with an add or a multiply in the body of the loop with some initializ…

Easy things can look hard when typeset in LaTeX.

Hard things can look easy when typeset in monospace.

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

#99

Post by faitswulff » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #94

ookdatnog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathise with people who go to college to study computer science, mainly with the intent of eventually landing a well-paid programming job, who are then frustrated when they have to learn actual computer science topics instead of just learning to program. But their anger is usually directed at the wrong institution. The problem doesn't lie with academia teaching the wrong things, it lies with companies requiring C…

There's a bunch of commercial prep courses and coding bootcamps that focus on applied programming. I wonder how long-term those skills are, reminds me of companies teaching MCSE certification a few decades ago.

The way I've seen it distinguished in colleges is as a separate "Software Engineering" track within the compsci department.

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

#100

Post by anthk » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

m463 wrote: post #89

chmod775 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it also helps with the hardest problem in software development: naming things. Without knowledge of the theory it can be hard to come up with a descriptive name for some data structure/algorithm you created to solve your problem. With some knowledge of the theory you can more easily put a name to what you have created, making it easier for other people to understand and giving them something to Google if they…

But loop variables are always i, j and k.

Except in EE.