Monkeys begin to type
Assignment one of the slightly tyrannical (or so it seemed to be historically) Foundation Lab is out here, so all of us are off typing, searching, reading and scratching.
The questions are essentially on gnu/linux shell programming and range from the slightly easy to the "hmm... that's interesting". I have done some amount of shell programming a while back, so it's a bit easier than some others who have to start from scratch. The good thing about unix/linux shell stuff is that it is somewhat like plugging lego blocks together, so it can get quite interesting while being quite useful. I liked something that the prof (Om Damani) said in his first short session: "I tell people that in some sense, the job of computer engineers is to make themselves redundant i.e. be replaced by automation". Shell programming does take the boredom out of mundane tasks, but takes a while to get the innards right.
A very good explanation of this toolbox design philosophy of Unix can be found in Eric S. Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming (a book that, sadly, I've only half-read).
[Addendum]
I've already had a very long day - Assuming I sleep by 12:00, I'd have had 6 hours of sleep this day. Most people in this line prefer late nights to early mornings; I'm the opposite. But when additional stuff has to be scheduled, it happens later at night, like today. Sometimes I skip them. Today wasn't one of those days. So tonight will be the first instance of me walking the 12 mins worth of distance to the hostel with the dark, anti-lighted throughfares of the campus. No detours for me, only the straight roads. And let sleeping panthers lie!
The questions are essentially on gnu/linux shell programming and range from the slightly easy to the "hmm... that's interesting". I have done some amount of shell programming a while back, so it's a bit easier than some others who have to start from scratch. The good thing about unix/linux shell stuff is that it is somewhat like plugging lego blocks together, so it can get quite interesting while being quite useful. I liked something that the prof (Om Damani) said in his first short session: "I tell people that in some sense, the job of computer engineers is to make themselves redundant i.e. be replaced by automation". Shell programming does take the boredom out of mundane tasks, but takes a while to get the innards right.
A very good explanation of this toolbox design philosophy of Unix can be found in Eric S. Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming (a book that, sadly, I've only half-read).
[Addendum]
I've already had a very long day - Assuming I sleep by 12:00, I'd have had 6 hours of sleep this day. Most people in this line prefer late nights to early mornings; I'm the opposite. But when additional stuff has to be scheduled, it happens later at night, like today. Sometimes I skip them. Today wasn't one of those days. So tonight will be the first instance of me walking the 12 mins worth of distance to the hostel with the dark, anti-lighted throughfares of the campus. No detours for me, only the straight roads. And let sleeping panthers lie!
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