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-   -   Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135172)

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 12:05

Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
(warning: the following story is about matrices.)

Today in AP Computer Science my teacher was lecturing us about how when creating a matrix, for example Matrix[3][3], the first set of brackets is rows and the second is columns. While this is usually convention, it is not actually how a matrix will work as the way we draw arrays, like the one above:
[0,0][0,1][0,2]
[1,0][1,1][1,2]
[2,0][2,1][2,2]
Is just a way for us to visualize, and not how they are actually created in the computer, as my teacher so believes. That is why I could draw the above like this:
[0,0][1,0][2,0][0,1][1,1][2,1][0,2][1,2][2,2]
or even this:
[0,0][0,1][0,2]
/////////////////[1,0][1,1][1,2]
//////////////////////////////////[2,0][2,1][2,2]
or even if I so choose I could draw it like this:
[0,0][1,0][2,2]
[0,1][1,1][2,1]
[0,2][1,2][2,2]
After a heated debate with my teacher over whether or not a computer actually builds out an array in the ordered fashion like this:
[0,0][0,1][0,2]
[1,0][1,1][1,2]
[2,0][2,1][2,2]
We decided to just dropped it. But now to the point of the post. My Chief Engineer and I were discussing the above designs and how all of them will work because you're drawing an imaginary things and it doesn't matter if you draw the cells as gummi bears it will work when I turn to him and say "People don't care about convention so long as you comment it enough!" (-Lord Supreme Programmer Isaac and Chief Enginerr Robert, 2/25/15)
So if there is a lesson to be learned it is comment your code, kids. Even though good code should speak for itself.

wireties 25-02-2015 12:18

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
How members of an array are stored and accessed is a function of the programming language. It is not something one should worry or argue about since the language will reference and de-reference everything for you. "Row" and "Column" mean nothing to the compiler. Notation has nothing to do with the physical location since memory is laid out so one accesses word-sized elements in sequence. In C and C++ matrices and arrays are really done with pointer arithmetic - google it.

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 12:24

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by wireties (Post 1449674)
How members of an array are stored and accessed is a function of the programming language. It is not something one should worry or argue about since the language will reference and de-reference everything for you. "Row" and "Column" mean nothing to the compiler. Notation has nothing to do with the physical location since memory is laid out so one accesses word-sized elements in sequence. In C and C++ it is really done with pointer arithmetic.

That is exactly what we said! We were trying to convince our teacher that you don't actually store these numbers in little ordered cells! We could say that when you create a Matrix[][] the first brackets are potatoes and the second are tomatoes and it would still work. It really frustrates me that my so called AP Computer Science teacher hasn't taught this since haskell, had to learn Java over the summer (he pronounces it as Jaiva, it can get irritating), and said, and I quote, "Java is the most popular programming language because three billion devices sounds like a lot". He just makes me want to smash my head into a wall. At least he got us 4 megabyte jumpdrives!

philso 25-02-2015 13:04

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by King Nerd III (Post 1449678)
At least he got us 4 megabyte jumpdrives!

It sounds like your teacher is a bit behind the times...

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 13:05

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by philso (Post 1449695)
It sounds like your teacher is a bit behind the times...

Don't worry, they will actually hold a surprising amount of documents. For just some simple Java programs they would work pretty well, but thankfully they were 4gb.

wireties 25-02-2015 13:21

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
I think you mean "Pascal". And C/C++ (counted together) is far and away the most popular programming language.

cadandcookies 25-02-2015 13:27

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Paskell sounds like an odd mix of Pascal and Haskell. That could be interesting...

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 13:29

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by wireties (Post 1449707)
I think you mean "Pascal". And C/C++ (counted together) is far and away the most popular programming language.

Sorry, typo. I meant Haskell. Only other language he knows. And the quote about Java was from him, probably one of the funniest things he's said as it reminded me of the quote from the Java install.

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 13:31

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by cadandcookies (Post 1449710)
Paskell sounds like an odd mix of Pascal and Haskell. That could be interesting...

That would be weird. Have you ever used Chicken or LOLCODE? They look really ridiculous.

Fields 25-02-2015 13:34

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by King Nerd III (Post 1449678)
At least he got us 4 megabyte jumpdrives!

Wait. They still make them that size?!? Seriously, google doesn't show up when I search that size.

I remember winning a 64mb drive in college for a CAD competition about 9 years ago. THAT was a big deal.

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 13:45

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fields (Post 1449716)
Wait. They still make them that size?!? Seriously, google doesn't show up when I search that size.

I remember winning a 64mb drive in college for a CAD competition about 9 years ago. THAT was a big deal.

Well here was the order of events:
1. He asks if they still make firesticks
2. I explain to the class what a firestick is
3. He asks if they would be useful or if we would prefer storing them in the "Lightning Cloud"
4. He says that we will buy 4mb firesticks from Circuit City.
5. He shows up with 4gb jumpdrives he bought for $25 a piece. 25 dollars. Where did he find them so expensive?????
6. We explain to my teacher how a gigabyte and megabyte are different.

jeremylee 25-02-2015 22:45

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fields (Post 1449716)
I remember winning a 64mb drive in college for a CAD competition about 9 years ago. THAT was a big deal.

When I was in school, I got a free 32mb with a $1500 dell laptop, score!

OP, it's crazy how quickly people can fall behind the times without even knowing it. Pick your battles in this kind of situation as some will never be won with either knowledge or wisdom. Might as well offer a coffee and talk about the weather instead.

Christopher149 25-02-2015 22:50

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fields (Post 1449716)
Wait. They still make them that size?!? Seriously, google doesn't show up when I search that size.

I remember winning a 64mb drive in college for a CAD competition about 9 years ago. THAT was a big deal.

I remember buying a 128 MB drive. This was about when they finally became "good", and it was on sale for the same price as a 64 MB version (at least $20).

King Nerd III 25-02-2015 22:57

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremylee (Post 1449954)
When I was in school, I got a free 32mb with a $1500 dell laptop, score!

OP, it's crazy how quickly people can fall behind the times without even knowing it. Pick your battles in this kind of situation as some will never be won with either knowledge or wisdom. Might as well offer a coffee and talk about the weather instead.

It's not like he is behind the times, he has a MacBook Air and a nice desktop for class, but the old desktop plugged into the archaic projector is just hilarious. I don't know what the plug is called, but it is larger than a VGA! God, it looks ridiculous!

EricH 25-02-2015 23:07

Re: Quotes from the Chief Engineer and I
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by King Nerd III (Post 1449962)
It's not like he is behind the times, he has a MacBook Air and a nice desktop for class, but the old desktop plugged into the archaic projector is just hilarious. I don't know what the plug is called, but it is larger than a VGA! God, it looks ridiculous!

Sometimes, the older technology JUST WORKS. And that is what is important in the long run. And it wasn't too long ago that FRC used 37-pin ports (like, last year--and there's still the MXP).

I believe you were looking at some form of serial or parallel port. Probably a many-pin one. VGA, if I'm not mistaken, is another form of serial port. You use serial ports on a near-daily basis if I'm not mistaken--on the Universal Serial Bus (USB).


(Incidentally, I had to boot up a Windows 2000 computer last night. Why, you ask? Because it can run program X. Program X serves a key function in this application. Old technology? Yep. Does it JUST WORK? Yep, unless someone turns it off...)


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