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The entries on this blog for EV.COM1 SOFT6001 can now be reached by simply going to http://soft6001.tk

The entries on this blog for COMP6021 can now be reached by going to http://comp6021.tk . The podcast feed for iTunes is http://comp6021podcast.tk/

This should save a few seconds. They all add up!

SOFT6001 Week 03

We looked at constants, variables, types, expressions, and precedence.
video: aps-week03-1.m4v

Slides

I gave out an exercise sheet to be completed at home.

I talked student through a problem and sample solution.


Students worked on tonight's problem set

I went through solutions to tonight's problems for those students that wanted to stay.

Finished up at 2130.

SOFT6001 Week 03 Problem Set

Tonight's problem set for anyone who wants a sneak preview.

Here's a sample problem and solution.

COMP6021 Class 06

We talked about digitization, quantization levels, and sample rates.

CMOD6001 Class 07

We completed the exercise on plagiarism. I was disappointed that students didn't complete this overnight like I asked.

We started to look at how one might go about writing a paper. We are going to work through "Is illegally downloading music wrong?" Students brainstormed in groups. When brainstorming it is important not to censor yourself or others. And don't try to develop the issue, just record as many ideas as you can.

audio:
cmod6001-07-20100930.m4a

CMOD6001 Class 06

We talked some more about plagiarism. Students did a group exercise on plagiarism, but we didn't get time to finish. I asked one student from each group to take responsibility for finishing up. We will continue with this exercise tomorrow.

Audio
cmod6001-06-20100929.m4a

COMP6021 Class 05

We looked at Lepem-Ziv-Welch coding. The slides in class had mistakes. So they will be different for the PDFs.

I gave an exercise. Most students seemed to get what was going on.

Some students used the second hour to catch up.

COMP6021 Class 04

We looked at arithmetic coding.

SOFT6001 Timetable changes

Following complains from a student last night about overcrowding in the lab, I spoke with the head of the department today.

To avoid over-crowding in future the class will be broken into two groups.
One group will have class from 1800-1950 and the other group will have class from 2000-2150.

I have assigned each student to a group based on the order in which students registered for the module. However if a student in the first group can find a student in the second group to swap with them, they may do so. However changes will be allowed only on a one-for-one basis. I will provide details of the groups in the next class, and allow a few minutes for some horse trading.

The new groups will the apply from Week 04.

CMOD6001 Class 05

No students turned up for today's class.

SOFT6001 Week 02

We looked at Otto the Robot

Students worked on Otto problems and tested them in the lab

Pavel & Piotr wow the prize for the best code.

Audio:
soft6001-week02.m4a

CMOD6001 Class 04

I asked students to figure out in groups the various reasons WHY students come to college. We discussed some of the answers. I asked students to figure out WHY they are at college. It's an important question to ask.

Audio
cmod6001-04-20100922.m4a

COMP6021 Class 03

We looked at the frequencies of the characters used in some students' text messages. There were one or two surprises.

I asked students to construct variable length codes for some of the characters using Huffman's algorithm. This gave the new students in the class a chance to catch up. We did that on the board. Some students had slightly different trees. If the small-left-big-right rule is not enforeced then the resulting VLCs are different, albiet with the correct lengths.

We discussed the prefix problem briefly and the overhead of tree transmission.

I explained that Huffman's algorithm requires prior knowledge of the data.

I explained that sometimes special comma codes are used to help the receiver recover if some data is lost in transmission.

Perhaps the word "town" is actually more frequent in text messages say "q". We thought about how whole words could also be given codes.

We finished up a good bit early so that the new students could use the lab time to catch up. But they didn't.

CMOD6001 Another Interesting Article

There is a less serious look at college life in today's Irish Times. It's fun, but it has a useful lesson.

There is a feature in this week's Expicit magazine about life at CIT.

COMP6021 Class 02

We recapped our discussions on ASCII.

We talked a little a bit about Unicode. Although you can buy whole books on Unicode, conceptually it is just the mother of all tables. More at Wikipedia or Unicode.org.

We played hangman to illustrate that letter occur with different frequencies. We talked about Variable Length Codes and Huffman coding, but not in detail.

Out of class work:
Watch the online class on Hufmann coding.
Count up the character frequencies of your last 10ish text messages and enter them into this spreadsheet. E-mail it back to Colin when done.

CMOD6001 Interesting Article

There was an interesting article in today's Irish Times.

CMOD6001 Class 03

We talked about recognition for prior learning (RPL) and Erasmus.

For more information about RPL contact phil.oleary@cit.ie. She will be able to help you.

Cliona.McGuane@cit.ie manages Erasmus for the Dept. of Computing. She has a web page about it.

Audio
cmod6001-03-20200917.m4a

CMOD6001 Class 02

Introductions.

I explained the modular system. I talked about the free choice options.

I talked students through the course descriptor for this module.

Handouts
CMOD6001 Course Descriptor

Audio
cmod6001-02-20100916.m4a

SOFT6001 EV.COM Week 01

Since this was the students' first class at CIT, I talked students through the various features of the module descriptor and explained what they meant. We discussed NFQ, ECTS, learning outcomes, and assessment types.

I briefly outlined how recognition for prior learning (RPL) works. Students interested in applying for RPL for modules should contact phil.oleary@cit.ie. She can talk you through the different options. Students interested in applying for RPL for this module should talk to me first.

Students should check this blog regularly. I will post information, notices, and links to notes. Students should take care to distinguish between the daytime and evening versions of this module. However, information relating to one group may be useful to the other.

The shortcut for EV.COM1 SOFT6001 on this blog is
http://colinmcit.blogspot.com/search/label/SOFT6001%20EV.COM1

After coffee we looked at some problems. In groups students worked on

• how to make a cup of coffee
• how to get the No.5 bus from Patrick St. to CIT
• how to sharpen a pencil

We saw that explaining how to do these things was not easy and we discussed some of the  difficulties


We looked at

• Sequence
• Selection
• Repetition

Images

IMG_0037.JPG


Audio
soft6001-week01a.m4a
soft6001-week01b.m4a

COMP6021 Class 01

We took a look at the module descriptor and I talked a bit about the module in general.

We looked at how bits can be used to represent things in the real world. They can have meaning as long as there is some agreement on a scheme for interpreting them. Bits by themselves have no meaning.

EXERCISE:
I asked students to go find an ASCII table online and to write out their name in bits. ASCII can use 7 or 8 bits. Don't forget the space between your first and last names.

Uppercase A is 1000001. Lowercase a is 1100001. Space is 0100000.

My name is 01000011 01101111 01101100 01101001 01101110 00100000 01001101 01100001 01101110 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111.

Binary values don't have spaces in them, but it makes them easier for humans to read.