Informational: CS378: *** Final Grades Distribution ***
Glenn Downing
There were 37 students at the beginning of the term.
There were 31 students at the end of the term.
There was NO curve on the final grades and the results were:
Mean = 82.61%
As = 11
Bs = 12
Cs = 6
Ds = 1
Fs = 1
GPA = 3.03
The top three students were:
Araas, Mark Anthony
Grantham, Samuel Cooper
Djap, Liusdi
Congratulations to them and best of luck to all of you.
Thanks for your participation. You were a great class, I hope you
got a lot out of it, and thanks for all the feedback on improving it.
Let me leave you with some reminders:
1) Learn to distinguish interface from implementation. Hide your data.
Make the minimum 'public'.
2) Become proficient at using assertions, exceptions, namespaces, and a
debugger.
3) Learn to use a memory checker and a profiler. Remember that they are
both runtime tools and even if perfect only have a limited ability to
help you debug or speed up a program.
4) Remember to manage the heap in small, well-defined classes, which
form a
foundation, and to do the rest of your programming on top of that
foundation. Even if you need to manage memory directly, never do it with
new/delete, use an allocator instead.
5) Learn to use and extend the eight main components of the STL:
allocators,
containers, container adapters, iterators, iterator adapters,
algorithms,
function objects, and function adapters.
6) Read a good book on intermediate C++:
Accelerated C++
Koenig & Moo
Addison-Wesley, 2000
ISBN 0-201-70353-X
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/020170353X/oopl/
7) Read a good book on advanced C++:
C++ Coding Standards
Sutter & Alexandrescu
Addison-Wesley, 2004
ISBN 0-321-11358-6
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321113586/oopl/
8) Read a good book on the STL and templates:
Generic Programming and the STL
Matthew Austern
Addison-Wesley, 1998
ISBN 0-201-30956-4
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201309564/oopl/
9) Read a good book about design patterns:
Design Patterns
Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides, & Booch
Addison-Wesley, 1995
ISBN 0-201-63361-2
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201633612/oopl/
10) Read a good book about best practices:
Code Complete
2nd Edition
Steve McConnell
Microsoft Press, 2004
ISBN 0-73561-967-0
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735619670/oopl/
11) And finally, if you liked the puzzlers:
Programming Challenges
Skiena & Revilla
Springer Verlag, 2003
ISBN 0-387-00163-8
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0387001638/oopl/
12) Most importantly for yourself and for others, teach someone else
what
you've learned. Be a mentor. Be a coach.
One last piece of advice, especially as some of you are graduating:
One of the critical things to being happy is being able to make a living
doing something that you love to do, that expresses you to yourself and
to
others, and that perhaps they don't even have to pay you to do. Ask
yourself
what you would do if you won the lotto (that is, after you got tired of
partying, which I realize might be a while). If I won, I think I would
still
try to write "beautiful" code and that I would still try to teach
others how
to do the same.
One of the things you're trying to figure out in college is what is that
thing that you'll love to do, day in, day out. It's hard to do, but try
to
put aside any preconceived notions you have about a career: the money,
the
image, the chicks/hunks (whatever floats your boat), etc. Try to ground
yourself by thinking out what the activity will be on a daily basis, and
whether that activity is something you'll love and feel fulfilled by.
Maybe
it's being a computer scientist, maybe it's not. If working for the Red
Cross, writing a novel, or being a money manager is the way to express
yourself, do that.
Best of luck finding your way. Don't let yourself get too frustrated,
if you
feel lost. I think everyone feels lost a good deal of the time. And
enjoy
the journey. In the end that's all life has to offer any of us.
Have a great summer and best of luck in the future.
Please don't hesitate to write anytime. I'll try my best to help.
Take care and good luck.
--
Glenn P. Downing
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Computer Sciences
Taylor Hall 2.124
Austin, TX 78712
(512) 471-7316
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/downing/