HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tchannon@black.demon.co.uk (Tim Channon)
Subject: Re: Code quality
Reply-To: tchannon@black.demon.co.uk (Tim Channon)
Organization: Compilers Central
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 02:20:25 GMT
Keywords: optimize

> How important is generated code quality these days?  There are a lot of
> good optimization techniques that seem to be adequate for ordinary
> programming.  But they still are at least 10% or 20% worse than the ideal.
> Is there much of a market for another 10% in speed of generated code?

It depends... I think that 10..20% is often very optimistic but will
depend very much on the processor.

A 2MHz 6502 will walk all over a 486/33 under certain cicumstances, same
algorithm, no choice about the data format and high speed bit twiddling of
the most awkward sort is not generally a HLL forte.

I've seen this sort of thing time and time again.

What does this mean: IMO understood problems can be solved by a compiler
because the compiler author or language designer knew a good solution,
move outside this area and we see the compiler for the dead thing it is.

Then there is the choice of source language. In general these seem to
cover a pretty narrow range of styles where the programmer has little
chance to use his brain to come up with imaginative solutions because of
the straightjacket of the HLL. How often do you see C programmers bending
their code to try and persuade the compiler to generate certain code? 

I guess that some of you may be angry at me suggesting that compilers are
no good because they cannot produce efficent code for ancient 8 bit
processors. Look at it this way -- if you need large machine resources to
produce what you call efficient code you aren't within 20% of optimum in
the global sense. 

  TC. 
    E-mail: tchannon@black.demon.co.uk or tchannon@cix.compulink.co.uk
-- 
Send compilers articles to compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or
{ima | spdcc | world}!iecc!compilers.  Meta-mail to compilers-request.
From: viviana@igor.tamri.com (Vivian Aldridge)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,ba.general
Subject: Looking for courses in BASIC and/or EXCEL
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:24:41 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA


Hi,
Does anyone know of a school or business that teaches
any of the following?

BASIC
DOS
EXCEL
VMS

I live in San Francisco, but I would commute to the
peninsula or the East bay.

I'd appreciate any of your suggestions. If you have
phone numbers, I'd be grateful.

Thanks!
Vivian
-- 
Vivian	Aldridge                       o__    Bay Area	  
viviana@tamri.com	       	      _.>/ _  Commuter
Toshiba America MRI      	     (_) \(_) SF (Haight St) 
South San Francisco,CA,USA		      to So.SF (Grand Ave)
From: yenal@trbilun.bitnet (Yenal Gogebakan)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: deneme
Date: 8 Jan 93 08:12:43 GMT
Organization: University of Bilkent-Computer Center  ANKARA/TURKEY

please ignore this message

Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.misc,soc.college,sci.edu
From: hfrg@cs.mcgill.ca (Peter Choi)
Subject: Re: Advice needed on relevance of Computer Science Classes/Major.
Organization: SOCS - McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 03:06:28 GMT

In article <1itclaINNch0@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> am893@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Hauben) writes:
>
>I would like to be able to study and contribute to the new
>field of computer networking and telecommunications.
> 
>Is Computer Science a valuable major as an undergraduate
>student? Or is it at most *training* for a job?

Definitely. What we do in Comp Sci is not only study algorithm, theory, and
ways to make a program better, we consider the architecture (i.e. INTEL
80286 and up, Motorola 68000 - 68040, and SPARC & ALPHA), ways to implement
them and also how to build them (of course it is recommended that if you
want to design/build chips, go into electrical engineering).

[list of courses deleted]

> 
>I have already taken Introduction to Computer Science /
>Programming in the Scheme dialect of Lisp, and a 1-point C
>programming language course.

	Lisp is an excellent AI language. It allows the users to "teach"
	the machine to learn. An example would be to build a family tree,
	and use it to search for queries.

	Many industries rely on AI. Some National Defenses companies look
	for people who know Ada to do some programming work.
> 
>What I would like to know, from those both currently in the
>major, and those working outside of academia in the computer
>industry, is if the computer science major is worthwhile. If
>it does represent an education and not just a training?
>

	Since the field of Comp Sci is an ever expanding course (new
	development almost daily), your education never ceases. You're
	always building on what you've learned. Granted some things may
	never change, but a lot of other things do.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
				Peter Choi
hfrg@cs.mcgill.ca (132.206.51.9) or pchoi@nyongwa.cam.org
McGill University, School of Computer Science, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Xref: sparky comp.edu:2276 comp.software-eng:5214
From: jsmith@mcs.drexel.edu (Justin Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Class Project For Software Engineering Course
Date: 5 Jan 93 14:30:55 GMT
Organization: Drexel University


At Drexel, we had a software engineering course taught in conjunction
with a computer networks course. We had teams of approximately
5 students and the project was to implement Ross Perot's Electronic
town meeting.  This seemed to work out well. The project had 
several components (running on Unix machines):

1. A server program

2. A client

The server maintained a kind of bulletin board for discussing issues,
and a vote-tallying module. Votes and records of discussions were written
to files and there was a separate reporting module.

The clients used curses to implement a fairly good user interface.
If we had more time we would have implemented X-window based clients
and clients on non-Unix machines like the Macintosh.

Communication between the clients and server was via TCP/IP.
-- 
Justin R. Smith                                        Office: (215) 895-1847
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science           Home: (215) 446-5271
Drexel University                                         Fax: (215) 895-2070
Philadelphia, PA 19104  (USA)                     
Xref: sparky comp.edu:2294 comp.misc:4852 soc.college:5936 sci.edu:1293
From: am893@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Hauben)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.misc,soc.college,sci.edu
Subject: Advice needed on relevance of Computer Science Classes/Major.
Date: 12 Jan 1993 03:07:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: am893@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Hauben)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


I would like to be able to study and contribute to the new
field of computer networking and telecommunications.
 
Is Computer Science a valuable major as an undergraduate
student? Or is it at most *training* for a job?
 
Data Structures
Discrete Math
Fundamental Algorithms
Software Design Laboratory
Computer organization
 
lead to the  possibility of taking
 
Operating Systems
and
Computing Networks
 
I have already taken Introduction to Computer Science /
Programming in the Scheme dialect of Lisp, and a 1-point C
programming language course.
 
What I would like to know, from those both currently in the
major, and those working outside of academia in the computer
industry, is if the computer science major is worthwhile. If
it does represent an education and not just a training?
 
I am currently trying to figure out my approach for
determining my major. So, any help or advice would be
appreciated.
 
        Thanks,
        -Michael Hauben
        hauben@columbia.edu or am893@cleveland.freenet.edu
From: choy@dvinci.USask.Ca (Henry Choy)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Edication crisis
Date: 11 Jan 1993 20:56:50 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
NNTP-Posting-Host: dvinci.usask.ca
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Nick Bezrukov (bnn@softp.kiev.ua) wrote:
: 
: Dec 30 in article on "Education crisis (was RE: how much math...)"
: Herman Rubin (hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu) writes:
: 
: > My own opinion, based
: > on observations of students from sophomores to PhD students, is that the
: > learning of methods, excessive formalism, and special cases interferes
: > with the learning of concepts.  Again, memorizing the definitions, and
: > even memorizing proofs, does not teach the concepts; they are learned
: > only when they can be used in new situations.
: 
: > Both in languages, including computer languages, and in mathematics,
: > understanding the structure can facilitate learning the details, and
: > acquiring proficiency in their use.
: 
: My own experience strongly support this observations. Teaching of concepts
: and problem solving are of primary importance. And as for teachers with
: inclination to excessive formal definitions I definitely feel that there is
: something rotten in there way of teaching of programming.  There are too much
: influence of fashion (proofs of correctness, remember), too much interest in
: subjects of quite esoteric nature and too wide gap between theory and
: practice.  After all every programming language is just another example of
: ability of natural language to extend itself to cover new grounds and as such
: an ability to use that language is different from the world of definitions and
: proofs.

There should be a mixture of both worlds. Flights of intuition mixed
with the rigor that kills bugs dead. Maybe rigor should come in Raid
spray cans :-D Sooner or later students have to learn the language
and work of their predecessors, unless they want to start over.
Students can be kickstarted into programming, but they will want a
more complete picture of computing. They'll need tools to think and
communicate. There's a lot of stuff to cover, but there's enough time
to do more than memorization. There's time to think, and students can
show their understanding through their work. They'll need to
communicate their ability to work. Any student who can't go with this
system should talk to the prof.

 

--

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs            This has been brought to 
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?                     you by the numbers 4
What's great for a snack and fits on your back?     and 9 and the letter P.
It's Log, Log, Log!  -- "The Log Song", from            -- Big Bird
                         Ren & Stimpy

Math is tough!       -- Barbie
From: reid@ss6.cps.msu.edu (Dr Richard J. Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Looking for Logic Simulator
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:18:05 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Michigan State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: ss6.cps.msu.edu

In article <1993Jan12.152822.10133@zip.eecs.umich.edu> labovit@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Craig Labovitz) writes:
>
>
>A while back, there was some discussion on circuit and
>gate simulation packages.
>
>Someone mentioned a program that runs on Sparcs called Logic
>Simulator.  Does anyone know where I might be able to find this
>package?  (archie doesn't turn up anything by this name).
>
>Any other suggestions for a GUI gate simulator for use in 
>explaining some concepts in an undergrad course?
>
>Thanks.
>
>- Craig

Craig --

Our logic simulator is available on ftp distribution.

This simulator is in regular use here and has been used
at a few other schools.

Versions are available for Sun-SPARC (OpenLook),
and PC (DOS).

Uses, from simple logic gate exercising, such as:

  Switch 1a sw_x ONE; /*<type> <icon-pos> <input> <init-value>*/
  Switch 3a sw_y ZERO;

  Nand 2b sw_x sw_y out;
  
  Probe 2c out;

with an interactive screen-graphics display, to the
implementation of complete computers are feasible.

Several computers complete with disk I/O and primitive
operating systems that execute code produced by standard
compilers have been constructed.  Many (hundreds) of smaller,
controller-sized microprocessors have been implemented by
undergraduate and graduate students.

Some advanced students have completed multi-processor
designs using over 15,000 components.  

This simulator provides a modest library of built-in primitive
elements as well as the capability for macro definitions and expansions.
In addition to the many gate types provided, functional elements
including latches, shift registers, counters, multiplexers,
decoders, rams, roms and microprocessors are available.
The primitive, multiple-input gate types allow an arbitrary
number of inputs, and the functionally-modeled elements such as
counters and registers can have any bit-width.

The simulator uses three-levels of signals:  zero,
indeterminate (in-transition or never-set), and one.
The high-impedance state of outputs can also be used.
Delays are modeled as intervals, spanning the extremes of
response times.  Delays are fixed for each component type;
otherwise, students adjust delays to make things work!

TO START

  Ftp the executable(binary) and the sample data.

  Use "anonymous" ftp login to acs.msu.edu (35.8.56.90).
  
  The simulator is in the pub/arch subdirectory.

  Only the binaries are being distributed--remember to set
  ftp mode to "binary".

 THEN (uncompress, if necessary):

 >$ sim data

 Operate the switches from the numeric keys (labels show
 on the Switch's on the screen).

WANT MORE?  After you've tried it out as shown above,
 and you want more information, send e-mail to:

  reid@cps.msu.edu

The documentation is our Computer Architecture class
"Laboratory Notes".  Only compressed PostScript-format
(-.ps.Z) is available.

Good luck,

Dick
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.logo
From: peterson@hpl.hp.com (Chris Peterson)
Subject: Logo Courseware Wanted
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:21:12 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, California

I would appreciate sources and recommendations for courseware for use in
teaching computer programming with Logo to a bright 3rd-grader (8 years old).

Please send replies via e-mail so that I may summarize them for a subsequent
posting.

Thanks.
-- 
Chris Peterson                      
Research Computing Services                      e-mail: peterson@hpl.hp.com 
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories                           phone: (415) 857-6432
Palo Alto, California USA                                fax: (415) 857-5686
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping)
Subject: Visiting Faculty Position Offered
Organization: Hope College Dept of CS
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 13:29:58 GMT

I can't recall if job postings are appropriate for this group.  I'm sorry
if they are not...but with the status of hiring these days, perhaps this
will be helpful.

      Mike Jipping
      Hope College Department of Computer Science
      jipping@cs.hope.edu  (BITNET: JIPPING@HOPE)

===========================================================================
						 Visiting Faculty Position Available

							Department of Computer Science
										Hope College
									Holland, MI  49423

Applications are invited for a visiting faculty position beginning
August, 1993. This position is a one-year leave replacement position with
a possibility of renewal for a second year.

Qualifications: A Ph.D. in Computer Science is required. Experience
   teaching undergraduate Computer Science is desired. Ability to teach
   algorithms, database, and the- ory courses is desirable.

Benefits: Standard health care benefits are provided with some employee
   contribution.  Every faculty member has a private office equipped with
   a workstation.

Resources: The department supports a network of 14 Sun SparcStations, a
   file server for the Sun network, and a 32 processor Transputer system.
   The department also has access to an instructional microcomputer
   laboratory and has access to both BITNET and the Internet.

Minorities & Women: Hope College and the Department of Computer Science
   are committed to increasing the number of women and minority persons who
   attend Hope and who are computer scientists. To this end, applications
   for this position from women and minority persons are especially
   encouraged.

Department: The Department of Computer Science has four full-time faculty
   members.  Both an A.B. and a B.S. degree in Computer Science are offered.
   In addition, the Department offers a major and minor for secondary
   education certification. The graduating class of 1992 included 14
   computer science majors, four of whom are presently attending graduate
   school in computer science. The Hope College Computer Science Department
   has been awarded 5 grants in the past year, including a three-year NSF
   Research Experiences for Under- graduates program grant which supports
   summer student research.

The College: Hope College is a co-educational, residential liberal arts
   college with approximately 2,700 students and is affiliated with the
   Reformed Church in America. Holland is a community of about 30,000
   located in western Michigan near the shores of Lake Michigan.


To apply send a letter of application and Curriculum Vitae to:

								 Dr. Michael J. Jipping
					Hope College Department of Computer Science
									  27 Graves Place
										P.O. Box 9000
								 Holland, MI 49422-9000

Phone: (616) 394-7509	 FAX: (616) 394-7123 	EMAIL:jipping@cs.hope.edu

Hope College is an equal opportunity employer.


Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: labovit@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Craig Labovitz)
Subject: Looking for Logic Simulator
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:28:22 GMT



A while back, there was some discussion on circuit and
gate simulation packages.

Someone mentioned a program that runs on Sparcs called Logic
Simulator.  Does anyone know where I might be able to find this
package?  (archie doesn't turn up anything by this name).

Any other suggestions for a GUI gate simulator for use in 
explaining some concepts in an undergrad course?

Thanks.

- Craig

-- 
  Craig Labovitz                   (labovit@eecs.umich.edu)       
  (313) 764-0252  (office)         (labovit@gynko.circ.upenn.edu) 
  (313) 741-8182  (home)                                           

Xref: sparky comp.edu:2271 comp.software-eng:5207
From: manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Class Project For Software Engineering Course
Date: 4 Jan 1993 18:20:38 -0800
Organization: Institute for Pure and Applied Eschatology
NNTP-Posting-Host: columbia.cs.ubc.ca

I've had considerable success over the years with what I call a
``dumbbell'' project, namely 2 sub-projects connected by a
narrow-bandwidth interface. The classic example of this (which I have
used twice, and shamelessly intend to use again) is an electronic mail
system, in which the 2 sub-projects are a user agent and a message
transfer agent. Another similar system is a student registration system,
again with a centralized data base and a student terminal agent.  News
systems, airline reservation systems, and the like are other good
examples.  

The protocol (interface) between these can be carefully defined (for the
email project, I designed a sort of ``baby SMTP''). The importance of a
clearly-specified interface becomes clear when one has to make one's
user agent work with somebody else's message transfer agent. 

There are a number of virtues of this approach: first, students are all
working on related projects, and thus get a good chance to interact with
other students (unlike in the ``find a client, and write a program which
satisfies the client's needs'' project type). Second, the program
structure is realistic (server/client computing, anyone?). Students know
this, and find it motivating. Third, it develops the concept of not only
working within a group, but also with another group (one group has to
test its user agent with another group's message transfer agent).
Fourth, it mixes good software design methodology (a common ADT for
messages on both the user agent and message transfer agent sides, for
example) with effective use of practical tools (user interface tools and
databases, for example). 

Some argue that a project should be ``useful'', in the sense that an A
project can actually be put into production (with some minor
modification). I strenuously object to this principle. Useful programs
have a lot of ``straight-line'' code (e.g., data editing) which students
will learn nothing useful by doing. (Of course I'm not arguing that
students shouldn't learn to write error checking code!) As an example,
the software engineering project at the University of BC one year was to
write a membership system for the Canadian Information Processing
Society. The best project was chosen; even then, it took a great deal of
work on the resulting system to render it usable as a candidate system
for CIPS. 

Given that even the best project is unlikely to be directly useful, my
preference is for a project which is artfully constructed so as to
concentrate the principles we're trying to teach, while still being doable
in 3 credit hours.

-- 
\    Vincent Manis <manis@cs.ubc.ca>      "There is no law that vulgarity and
 \   Computer Science, Langara College     literary excellence cannot coexist."
 /\  100 W. 49th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada (604) 324-5205  -- A. Trevor Hodge
/  \ Co-author of ``The Schematics of Computation'', Prentice-Hall, Jan 1994
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: jprice@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Janet Price)
Subject: short pascal text 
Organization: Kalamazoo College
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:26:39 GMT


I'm looking for a SHORT non-frightening book on Turbo Pascal (Macintosh)
to use in an intro course for non-majors.  All I seem to be able to
find are 600 page monsters that are way too comprehensive.  What I'm
looking for is something like "Oh Macintosh Pascal" from several years
ago on Mac Pascal, but for Turbo Pascal. If it used the graphics
commands, that would be a plus, but it's not necessary.  Is
anyone familiar with something like this that is currently in print?

Thanks.
-- 
            Janet Price (jprice@kzoo.edu)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
From: ptripp@diana.cair.du.edu (Phil Tripp)
Subject: Exam Security Software
Keywords:  Is there any?
Organization: University of Denver, Denver, Colorado
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 22:30:56 GMT

Does anyone know of any software that can be used to monitor
a student's work on a computer (Macintosh and  PC) for purposes
of exam security?

Someone recently asked me about such software.  They want to
let students use a personal computer to write their answers to
exam questions.  The students would be using the computer only
for word processing much like they could use a typewriter rather
than write the answers by hand.

The perceived problem with such a situation is this: students 
could easily access information electronically from their own
diskette or from a local hard disk or, if the computer is on a 
network (bad idea in this case), from some other source.
The computer then becomes more than a word processor; it becomes
a powerful tool the students can use to "cheat" on an exam.

Personally, I think we need to revolutionize education to the point
where such things are not important, but as education is today,
traditional exam giving and taking is still the norm.

Thanks for any clues.

-- 
Phil Tripp, Computing and Information Resources, U of Denver, Denver, CO, USA
ptripp@diana.cair.du.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu