classes at UFPE
Apr. 26th, 2003 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslClasses started this Tuesday.
I went to:
Grad Intro to AI
Grad ProgLan Paradigms
Undergrad/Grad Algorithms
Undergrad/Grad Musical Computing
Probably staying with only AI and Musical Computing. Algorithms is too elementary, and ProgLan Paradigms looks a lot like CS208 from Bucknell, although apparently deeper.
AI is taught by a very entertaining French actor. He encouraged our self-affirmation as RESEARCHERS, and not students; and he made fun of experimental physics papers (more pages listing authors than content). We will be using UML to do our ontologies, and the course seems very practically-oriented, like most courses here. (My economist uncle said: Brazil needs more technology transfer, not more theory. But he also said my comparative advantage IS theoretical work, so maybe Brazil is not the place for me. I agreed.)
In Music, we are first studying acoustics and psychoacoustics, and a lot of my old doubts about signal-processing are coming up again. I'm always adding the constraint of conservation of energy (or power) to see if things hold up. (Kinda similar to how I use information theory). So far, I haven't learned anything new, but it was only my first lesson.
I am such a theorist. In ProgLan paradigms, the prof showed us a list of required properties of a programming language: and one of them was "naturalness" for solving problems in some domain. So I asked: "How do you measure naturalness?". He said it was subjective. So I went on to ask if Kolmogorov (program-size) Complexity could provide an objective measure, but he didn't know.
There is a more theoretical course called "Semantics of Programming Languages", but it will be next semester.
I went to:
Grad Intro to AI
Grad ProgLan Paradigms
Undergrad/Grad Algorithms
Undergrad/Grad Musical Computing
Probably staying with only AI and Musical Computing. Algorithms is too elementary, and ProgLan Paradigms looks a lot like CS208 from Bucknell, although apparently deeper.
AI is taught by a very entertaining French actor. He encouraged our self-affirmation as RESEARCHERS, and not students; and he made fun of experimental physics papers (more pages listing authors than content). We will be using UML to do our ontologies, and the course seems very practically-oriented, like most courses here. (My economist uncle said: Brazil needs more technology transfer, not more theory. But he also said my comparative advantage IS theoretical work, so maybe Brazil is not the place for me. I agreed.)
In Music, we are first studying acoustics and psychoacoustics, and a lot of my old doubts about signal-processing are coming up again. I'm always adding the constraint of conservation of energy (or power) to see if things hold up. (Kinda similar to how I use information theory). So far, I haven't learned anything new, but it was only my first lesson.
I am such a theorist. In ProgLan paradigms, the prof showed us a list of required properties of a programming language: and one of them was "naturalness" for solving problems in some domain. So I asked: "How do you measure naturalness?". He said it was subjective. So I went on to ask if Kolmogorov (program-size) Complexity could provide an objective measure, but he didn't know.
There is a more theoretical course called "Semantics of Programming Languages", but it will be next semester.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: theoretician!
Date: 2003-04-28 09:36 pm (UTC)I am actually interested an idealization of the programmer. Program size seems like a good objective measure, but I could probably find some faults with it if I were in a thinking mood.
Some people are interested in making computers understand and use natural language... but I'm more interested in making humans speak computer languages... formal languages can provide a certain precision, conciseness, etc., which are more fit for doing science... besides allowing us to talk to computers.
I am always struggling with the fact that humans are not wired to do logic naturally. But one day they will. (probably with real wires)