Summary

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Class 02: 5-September-2017

• Linus Torvalds, Andrew Tannebaum, GNU project, Richard Stallman
• Dynamic programming intro
• New text for class
• Comparison of programming paradigms
• Constants on left
• Common mistakes in online and real-time contests

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Class 03: 12-September-2017

• Please do the homework -- send me UVA number
• Think about teams and competing
• Talked about people/computing history
• Difference in free as in beer vs free as in thought.
• software licenses: GPL vs FreeBSD

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Class 04: 19-September-2017

• Small turn out for class -- disaappointing
• talked a little about Slashdot/net neutrality/packt/news.googpe.com/...
• td talks - showed Michael McDaniel: Cheap, effective shelter for disaster
• Harry Chapin - Thanksgiving and Calluses
• talked about CS, having to cover fundamentals, can't do 5 -7, value of writing code folks invented N years ago, asked if anyone was going to invent an algorithm
• Desgn vs Coding -- if you have to think while coding, you are not coding -- are designing and coding. Top down vs bottom up. Go back and rewrite something that already works in a different way and see what happens. Figure out how to turn things into fun.

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Class 05: 26-September-2017

• Talked a little about Quora
• Typical approach to learning a language:
  • Present everything the person needs to write a simple program
  • Have them write the simple program
  • Layer on top
• The problem with this is that in a language like Java, step 1 is a lot of stuff. It takes a long time for that much stuff to make sense to a beginner. By then more stuff has been layered on top. This makes it very hard for beginners to decode and understand the basics.
• Alternative idea:
  • start with an assignment statement and a flow control
  • With just these basic flow control constructs can be demonstrated

    i = 1
    tot = 0
    top:
    tot = tot + i
    i = i + 1
    if (i < 11) goto top
    

  • This is a repeat until loop. Learnign the various control structures this way will make it easier for beginners to grasp them. It will also provide the chance for a person to understand them better so they can choose wisely when to use which.
  • More importantly, that basic syntax could be taught day 1. In the firs week, beginners could be writing code that did stuff. Simple I/O could be covered at end of week so student could then get a real positive feedback early in the cycle.
  • Another benefit of this approach is that it gets the concept of gestalt across. The above example is nothing but assignment, simple arithmetic and an if. Individually, these are relatively easy concepts. Combined in this manner and you have code that does a summation. The combination (sum) of the individual parts implements a more complicated concept. Very early on a beginner could see the power of combining simple commands. They could also see that the order and logic are critical in turning commands into an "algorithm".
• Mentioned the Humble Book Bundles where some of the money goes to charity.
• 11057,10062,11530

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Class 06: 3-October-2017

• Announcements
  • NAQ
• Frequency problem had a compliucation -- need to sort
• Frustration -- a significant factor in why most projects/documents come to an end
  • Frustration when doing something comes form the goal and from the tools used to accomplish the goal
  • Choosing/making tools that are more natural, that seem like an extension of yourself, that require minimum of thought/effort allow more focus for the problem
  • Being able to make tools is another step above using tools
• Looking at problems from multiple directions can often provide an attack vector that is easier

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North American Qualifier: 7-October-2017

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Class 07: 10-October-2017

• Announcements

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Class 08: 17-October-2017

• Announcements

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Break: 19,20-October-2017

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EBRPL Mini Maker Faire: 21-October-2017

• The Baton Rouge Mini Maker Faire will be Saturday, October 21st.
• Looking for folks to demo Arduino stuff!
• Note that this is during Fall Hoiday

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Class 09: 24-October-2017

• Announcements

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Class 10: 31-October-2017

• Announcements

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ACM South Central Regional Programming Contest: 3,4-November-2017

• ACM ICPC South Central Regional Programming Contest

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Class 11: 7-November-2017

• Demo'd a simple basic program and talked about simplicity of language
• Looked briefly at source of a Cobol program and talked about the data section and commands like move corresponding. Briefly tried to explain the various numeric types and why they existed
• Looked at how integers are stored in binary
• looked at 2's complement and actually went through the steps
• demonstrated that 2's complement of x is the same as negating x and that a-b become a+ -b (apply 2s complement to b, then add a to it)
• talked about real numbers (sums of 1/(2^n) times 2^n). Explained how 1/3 does not have a precise binary equivalent (when store as real or double). Explained how the errors accumulate as more and more computations are done.
• brought up the entire can of worms when dealing with floating point in computers and the process of trying to determine current level of accuracy

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Class 12: 14-November-2017

• Final
• Announcements

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Class 13: 21-November-2017

• Announcements

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Class 14: 28-November-2017

• Announcements
  • Class Final

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