Smart Software

Online Courses

I have been regularly sifting through course material (syllabi, presentations) in MIT's publicly accessible OpenCourseWare website since the program was launched years ago.

Earlier this year, I took a further step and started delving deeper by approaching one of the courses as a student. The courses in question are graduate courses, 6.972 Algebraic Techniques and Semidefinite Optimization, and 6.883 Program Analysis in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department.

I purchased some of the suggested texts from Amazon.

• Cox, D. A., John B. Little, and Donal O'Shea. Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms: An Introduction to Computational Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1997. ISBN: 0387946802.
• Mishra, Bhubaneswar. Algorithmic Algebra (Monographs in Computer Science). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1993. ISBN: 0387940901.
• Sturmfels, Bernd. Solving Systems of Polynomial Equations. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, 2002. ISBN: 0821832514.
• Yap, Chee-Keng. Fundamental Problems of Algorithmic Algebra. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0195125169.

I have been developing my static analysis tool without taking formal course, although I did review a number of lecture slides and academic papers. The reading list from a syllabus of another program verification course led me to purchase Logic in Computer Science (Modeling and Reasoning about Systems) and Software Abstractions, which after a couple days of reading, allowed me to come to understand the major approaches used in program verification including model checking and temporal logic.

The impetus for my self-study was my frustration with using the Internet as a resource for  learning. While various sites like Google Scholar, CiteSeer, and ACM Digital Library are valuable for reading up on latest research and techniques, and many detailed lecture notes and readings for introducing computer science theories are available in PDF, learning about established approaches at the graduate-level over the Internet is inadequate (look up Grobner Bases, for example). The Internet in such cases is not a good substitute for university courses in which material is selected, organized, and designed for pedagogy.

I uncovered tricks for reading through entire contents of a book though A9, Amazon's book search engine, but admittedly prefer, Google Books Search which offers substantial excerpts and previews of many academic publications such as in modal logic, hard to find even at a university book store.

I discovered later this year the University of Washington professional masters program in computer science has video taped lectures online for all their master's course, a practice that I assume was funded by local employer, Microsoft. The site includes a Conference XP web viewer that conveniently synchronizes slides, video, and agenda for remote listening. I had at one point considered applying for a UW MSCS degree in 1996, when the program was just starting with approximately 40 students, but the course offerings then were limited, and not in areas that I was interested in (ie, Transaction Processing). The program seems to have grown significantly larger over the decade since.

My goals have since evolved so that I might actually try something more ambitious, which is to gain exposure to the whole range of courses lectures in computer science, mathematics and other disciplines that I am interested in.

I don't think that my undergraduate education was as well designed as it could have been, but it might have been through the fault of my own not interacting with my advisers more. The ease of access of university courses is such an advantage for college students coming in today. Had I been a student now, I would have learned material online before taking the course, allowing me to decide whether I want to reinforce the learning and enroll in the course.  I could also listen to multiple courses taught by different lecturers to acquire a different perspective on the material.

Underachievement

My parents recently purchased a vacation/retirement condo in Florida. All the family members reunited for the grand opening earlier this month. I was very impressed. The floor is all marble. The walls facing the Atlantic Ocean are completely glass window, and the curtains are shaded, so that sunlight does not come through, but the ocean view is preserved.

 

 

The balcony...

 

There is a beautiful beach, conveniently located behind the condo, and a golf course and tennis court.

 

Mom suggested that I move in the condo (or in the regular home) rent-free, because it is absolutely crazy that I am paying rent to live in Seattle. It's something that I am considering, but am not likely to choose, because doing so would present a fixed moving cost as well as the opportunity costs of leaving Seattle. Our regular home is also very nice, traditional and rich in little detail.

All of this adds to the very palpable gap between my lifestyle as a software developer and that of my family and friends all, who are all in the medical profession. The circle of people I was around were all highly educated and successful, but I never thought of myself or my family as being exceptionally well off. My father is conscious about each dollar, seeking value without lowing his standards; we do normally fly coach. At every family vacation, he surprises us with an over-the-top experience to exotic locations.

I am not very attached to material things, but tend towards minimalism. I could never appreciate the advantages of an expensive car over a regular one; the expensive car sometimes had broken window and a missing radio. But, I still have in me a persistent sense of underachievement relative to my father and siblings.

My father always seemed to aspire to an aristocratic sense of being. I am reminded about this Slate review of the film Metropolitan. My father only listens to classic music and only watches the classic films and operas, while deriding modern movies as devoid of substance. As youngsters, my siblings and I were forbidden to wear jeans, tattoos, and other symbols of the working class. My parents speak of noblesse oblige and etiquette.

My father was disappointed that I did not continue on to graduate school to pursue a PhD, all the more so because of the social barriers introduced by my race and his full coverage of my tuition. My father would regularly remind me that my salary was "peanuts," and that just to maintain his home each year was $100K. His early (but since evolved) impression of the MBA degree was that it was similar to a vocational degree, but this is due to the deep French bias against the merchant class.

Reboot

It has been about a year so far since I have written anything substantive in this blog. Yet, over the year, I have actually started on writing a number of blog posts that have never materialized. I think that there are a few reasons...

(1) Although I have been treating this as a personal blog, I felt the quality of my writing had to improve, which means spending more time composing and editing.

(2) A number of posts were going to be about the technology underlying my product, and, since there was still more work for me to do, I felt it too soon.

I still get mail about NStatic. I am still developing NStatic, and will eventually release it. Due to health and fatigue, I have not been directly developing for half the year, following several years of non-stop 7-days-a-week development (on this and other products) and no vacations and little entertainment.

My quality of life is at this moment very low, probably equivalent to or less than that of a graduate student; my outlay is over $2K a month. My existence is mostly online. Though I live in the Seattle metropolitan area, I have probably visited Seattle proper at the rate of once or twice for each of the past few years. I needed to correct an imbalance in my life as it has hampering my motivation.

My hiatus began late spring after I accidentally poisoned myself by handling and absorbing thought my skin diluted household bleach, which sent me to visit the hospital, kept me bedridden for a few weeks and subsequently affected my productivity for the remainder of the year. I felt sore internally, and my focus and vision was significantly diminished. Faces and text became blurred that I began wearing glasses, but my eyesight improved over time and seems to have recovered recently after using Visine. On a related note in September, I also suffered effects of stomach ulcers from heavy use of caffiene after trying an energy pill. It wasn't a good year for my health.

I have continued to read academic papers, follow online courses, purchased books on the subject and follow development blogs. I spent some time thinking in a high-level way about my goals. I also started doing things within my limited budget that I cared about like this election, in which I voted and volunteered for Barack Obama, Chris Gregoire, Darcy Burner.

I am getting back to development. If I haven't delivered by the end of first quarter 2009, though it might reflect severe motivation as each delay is an expensive financial impact.

I'll write more posts, but they'll initially be short.