What to expect or Now that I have gotten used to Prof. Fitzpatrick, here is this new guy with his weird foreign accent…

Introduction Akos Ledeczi Research Associate Professor at EECS Senior Research Scientist at ISIS (Institute for Software Integrated Systems) Research Interest: – Wireless Sensor Networks – Model Integrated Computing Office hours: – Wednesdays 3-4pm – 2015 Terrace Place, across from Baker Building

Why two professors? “the idea to combine professors is bad ” Maybe, but it is a compromise with good reasons behind it: – It saves a lot of time for us. Given a fixed number of hours we can dedicate to the class, we can use it to improve the material, create more examples, answer s, etc. – The two sections are pretty much equivalent.

Communication “Hard to understand through the Russian accent…” “Needs to speak slower.” “Difficult to understand at times.” Communication needs to be bidirectional. Do not be afraid to ask questions! Chances are, you are not alone with your problem… There are no stupid questions…

Speed “Easy class. Helpful for engineering students. Didn't really learn anything new until halfway through the semester, though.” “Also, the class moved very slowly. There wasn't really much point in actually going to class” “He teaches a bit fast” “Difficult to understand during class due to the speed when going over example problems” With 200+ students having diverse backgrounds, experience level, abilities, it’ll always be slow to some and fast to some others. I’ll try to strike a balance.

Outside class “The professors never respond to s asking for help.” Not true. But if I do not respond immediately after reading your , it may slip my mind. If you do not get an answer within 24 hours, send me a reminder. I won’t be annoyed, I’ll be glad you reminded me. Your “first line of attack” should be the TAs, because back of the envelop calculation: – Each student sends one per month – It takes an average of 5 minutes to read/respond  4 hours per week (10% of (official) working hours)

Bad news Most difficult part of the semester So far, we have been using Matlab as a glorified calculator It is time to write programs: – Code that has more complicated structure than simple sequential steps: – Branching – Loops – Functions

Why is it difficult? Computers are dumb: they need to be told what to do very precisely, using elementary steps When you see a “smart” application, it is all in the software Programming languages: – assembly (what the CPU understands) – C, C++ (compiler translates it to assembly) – Java, Matlab (interpreter “executes” program) Matlab has lots of smarts, but it is still a programming language

Still, why is it difficult? Algorithmic thinking is not natural to humans We are great at things that computers still cannot do (at least not well): intuition, “intelligent,” “creative” and contextual thinking, or more concrete example, natural language understanding, image understanding, etc. Computers are great processing large amounts of information fast (if you tell them what to do and how to do it via a program) But translating a problem to a program that computers can “understand” requires you to “think” like a computer It comes naturally to some, some others can become quite good with practice and still some suffer to make this mental switch (Incredible productivity difference between an average and a great programmer) The only way to get there (and become good at it) is by doing it: PRACTICE

Programming It is a creative process There are a few flexible building blocks (i.e., programming constructs), but you decide which ones to use, in what order, how to “configure” them, etc. There is an infinite number of possibilities The same problem can be typically solved many different ways This makes it challenging, but really rewarding A well-written program is just like a piece of art

Why is it important? This may very well be the most important class you take at Vanderbilt “Everybody” writes programs these days in engineering, science, business, etc. to solve all kinds of problems Software runs “everything” these days: cars, phones, TVs, medical equipment, factories, utilities, traffic, etc. – Your programming ability may be your most valuable asset in the job market

Class 1.Good old boring lecture – All code examples will be available by class time on the website – Class notes (highlights) will be updated after class 2.In-class assignments: – The only way to learn this is by practicing it – Most of you would not do this until 2 days before the next homework is due which would be too late for many  – Use this opportunity to try out what you have just heard – You can quickly realize if you do not understand something – ASK QUESTIONS 3.Fun: 5-min context switch: – Discussion of an interesting topic from CS/EE

Conclusion There are no stupid questions Practice, practice, practice Programming is one of the most important skills an engineer can have today I am here to TEACH you and NOT to give you a hard time, give you a bad grade, make your life miserable, etc.