The Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre which is at Bell Village is one of the most well-kept secrets in Mauritius!
We went there two weeks ago with average expectations… We payed (I believe) Rs. 30 for a ticket. The first nice surprise was that there were a lot of things to experiment with in the yard. Things like using parabolas [...]
During a conversation with a journalist, something was pointed out and I could not find its irrelevance: “We live in a country that is built on mediocrity & passivity”.
The negative side
We are mediocre in most of the things we do. We are not very original as we seldom create. We either bring ideas from other [...]
Randy Pausch, Professor at Carnegie-Mellon university, died yesterday of complications from pancreatic cancer at the age of 47.
A few weeks ago, Gavin and I watched his last lecture, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, and it was a nice experience. This guy knew he was going to die, yet he was happy to give a last lecture in [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Rest in peace, Randy Pausch”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/07/26/rest-in-peace-randy-pausch/” });
Time has come for me to leave the University of Mauritius. I have already given my notice and I’ll be leaving at the end of August after having worked as a lecturer in the Computer Science department for more than three years.
The main reason I’m leaving is that I am currently trying to obtain a [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Time for a change”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/07/08/time-for-a-change/” });
I’ve just come across an inspiring blog entry with the thought-provoking title You don’t know that programming language. The authors argues that knowing a programming language is very different from knowing of a programming language.
Personally, I know of C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, LISP, Scheme and Objective-C. But do I really know them perfectly? The answer [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “I don’t know any programming language”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/06/13/i-dont-know-any-programming-language/” });
I’ve just come across a very interesting and deep transcript of a talk by Clay Shirky on Gin, Television, and Social Surplus. Here is my favorite part:
It’s better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Watch TV less. Create more.”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/05/01/watch-tv-less-create-more/” });
I am happy to announce that the Mediacom Studio website, www.mediacomstudio.com, has just been created by Christina and myself.
Mediacom Studio is a state-of-the-art audio and video production facility for Communication Studies students at the University of Mauritius. The studio will be fully operational for the 2008-2009 academic year. The studio has been funded by one [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “A multimedia studio for Comm students”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/04/26/a-multimedia-studio-for-comm-students/” });
I have just come across a great article by Alex Iskold entitled Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer. It is a must read for all aspiring software engineers out there… especially those who are still learning the skills in a university.
The 10 traits he mentions are:
Loves To Code
Gets Things Done
Continuously Refactors Code
Uses Design Patterns
Writes Tests
Leverages [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “On being a Rock Star Software Engineer”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/04/15/on-being-a-rock-star-software-engineer/” });
My Year II students are currently learning scripting with Ruby, my favorite programming language (ex aequo with Scheme I think…). Today I thought about what could be the difference between scripting and programming and I came up with:
Scripting is the same as programming except that you don’t have to worry about unnecessary details like deciding [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Scripting with Ruby and Audioscrobbler”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/04/14/scripting-with-ruby-and-audioscrobble/” });
I am currently teaching programming languages to second year students. I spent about 4 weeks introducing Scheme to them and I covered the following topics:
Expressions
Functions
Scope
Recursion and tail-recursion optimization
Pairs and lists
Higher-order function
Each lecture was followed by a lab session where students practiced what they saw in class.
I then gave the students an assignment to do where [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Scheme is a good language for beginners”, url: “http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/04/11/scheme-is-a-good-language-for-beginners/” });