CS371p Spring 2022: Jonathan Randall

What did you do this past week?

  • Data Mining
    • We took an exam on clustering and anomaly detection. Some of the questions asked us to imagine what clustering algorithms would do on example datasets (visualized via 2-dimensional scatter plots). I find this difficult.
    • Our project group started on a classification test. We are trying to predict outcomes at the Austin Animal Center, e.g. whether the animals were adopted, transfered, etc, based on features like their age, breed, etc.
  • Big Data
    • We are toying with data-parallel processing in PyTorch across a cluster of machines. The idea behind data-parallel processing is that forward prop on part of a mini-batch of training examples occurs on a single machine, with the segments of the mini-batches given to different machines.
  • OOP
    • Darwin left me feeling unsatisfied. I really wanted to make Instruction generalizable, so that one could declare arbitrary instructions (using inheritance). In this dream, all of the information on how to update Creatures and their adjacent space should be inside of Instruction.
    • I realized we don’t have exams in this class only this week. I was waiting for an exam.

What’s in your way?

Projects in Big Data and Data Mining stand before me.

What will you do next week?

I will work with my group in Data Mining. I will work with my group in Big Data. I will clean my house. I will try to do some watercolor.

What did you think of Paper 12. Why extends is evil?

The primary grievance aired rested on derived classes invoking an overridden function, and that function calling a non-virtual function in their parent class. However, having function implementations in base classes seems useful in some circumstances. If we know a function will be implemented identically in all derived classes of a class, won’t this lead to redundancy?

What was your experience of iteration, initializations, and vector? (this question will vary, week to week)

Everything’s making sense. But where do allocators come in? We are still calling zero-argument constructors n times when building an array.

What made you happy this week?

I went to brunch today. I have been watching Breaking Bad. It’s pretty good.

What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week is this paper describing the Verified Software Toolchain developed to build reliable software systems that is provably correct.

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