This blog is now obsolete. Go to scott.arbeitman.id.au for all new content.

Showing posts with label mcgill university. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mcgill university. Show all posts
0

Minor Thesis: Inference of Enumerated Types In Java

| Wednesday, September 2, 2009

If you're not from the Computer Science discipline, you can safely skip this post.

After doing some hard drive spring-cleaning, I came across the Latex files relating to my master's thesis at the University of Melbourne. Although I undertook a Masters of Software Systems Engineering by coursework, I was able to write a minor thesis in lieu of 2 subjects.

At the time, compilers and type analysis were of particular interest to me, having thoroughly enjoyed the Compiler Design class at McGill several months earlier. In that class, we wrote a compiler for a toy language called WIG and added features to an existing compiler for the JOOS language, a subset of Java. We used the SableCC lexer/parser, an open source compiler compiler written by another McGill student. I remember staying up several late nights before the project was due. It was great fun.

The forthcoming language enhancements in Java 5 provided a good platform for static code analysis and enhancement; a similar paper inferred generic types, for example. I had also competed a survey of programming languages class which compared functional, logic and imperative language (Haskell, Prolog and Java respectively) taught by Peter Schachte. Peter was kind enough to supervise.

With that background, I thought I would post the PDF of the paper I wrote. I'm not sure if this is the exact paper I submitted, and it certainly includes some typos and, having reread it recently, I can see that my writing needed a bit of work. It is very difficult to decipher some of the content. I suspect I used the most complex symbols and wording possible, but I had slaved through reading similar papers during my research so I must of thought that was the best way to do things.

Without any further ado, please find my paper, Inference of Enumerated Types In Java in PDF format. Note that this paper has not been published in any journal, and has had minimal peer review. It is presented for educational purposes only. However, if you'd like to chat about it, do get in touch.


1

78 Means "You're a just a very tiny bit better than average"

| Monday, November 24, 2008

It's official: I'm slightly better than average. But I'm not getting cocky; the difference is not statistically significant. So actually, yeah, I'm probably average. And that's OK.


I have now received my grades for both of my syndicate assignments, which are:

  • Marketing: 78
  • Accounting 78
You might wonder what mark I received last term. I'm not shy. I'll tell you:
  • Managing People for High Performance (MPFHP): 78 (update: my MPFHP mark was actually a 76)
This, of course, is no freakish coincidence. Melbourne Business School grades on a curve, and I'm pretty sure the mean of that curve is 77.

Update: I've been told the mean is actually more like 75, but the gist is the same.

I'll tell you why I love the curve:The curve opens upwondrouspossibilities or learning. You see, when I know that class average must be 77, I don't hesitate to take "hard" classes that I could otherwise avoid. For example, I'm not a fan of accounting, but might try my luck at a whole class on financial statement analysis. Why not? I'm not scared of a 75. And I won't favour an "easy" class like "Leadership" just to boost my GPA. A 79 won't make a difference.

Let me contrast this with McGillwhere I did my undergraduate degree. In McGill, my major -- Computer Science -- was "hard". I can tell it's hard for a number of reasons, but an easy way to tell is that the average mark hovered around a 65, which I think was C or C+. On my transcript, it was not unusual to see a C-, and even once, a D. Without context, this isn't too good. Don't worry, though, I was able to boost slightly my GPA by taking some "easy" classes. Among them:
  • Sexual Ethics
  • International Organization
  • Understanding Planet Earth
  • Space Time and Matter
Unfortunately, I was considerably more restricted in the classes I could take than a average McGill student so my GPA stayed low in absolute terms, although probably slightly higher than average for a computer science student. Still, this low GPA had real implications in finding my first job; a legacy which still haunts me in many respects to this day.

So embrace the curve. Ride it. And enjoy your 78.