Beginning CSC148 and Why Geeks Must Know How to Write

    I've just started my first semester of Intro to Computer Science (CSC148) at U of T and have been delighted to find that students are instructed to keep a weekly updated course SLOG. I found that the requirement of  keeping a log of last semester in CSC165 was extremely useful in helping me to reflect on my learning regularly, as well as allowing me to revisit and answer forgotten questions I'd had in previous weeks.

    Beginning with the topic of why geeks should know how to write seems rather fitting, as many of my encounters with fellow geeks over text communication have been rather strenuous. It is quite frustrating to me that, at times, the writings of individuals involved in the technology community can be far more cryptic than the complex systems said individuals implement. Although we are, after all, geeks and English is not necessarily a thrilling area of study for us, we should all most definitely know how to interact with non-geeks, at least over text. Not only this, but we should also know how to interact with our fellow geeks. Since (by assumption) we are logical thinkers with desire for as little ambiguity as possible, it makes the most sense to have enough power over the English language, just like any programming language, to eliminate such ambiguity. This is certainly a function "1337" speak simply does not allow for (pun intended).

    Aside from the issues with clarity with others, I also feel it important to know how to write to ourselves. I've lost count of the amount of times I have written several lines of comments to describe a small role in a snippet of my code, all to completely eliminate my own future misunderstanding. Just as Mark Dalrymple posted about in his blog (Adventures in Debugging - Keeping a Log), leaving notes to oneself in order to pick up work precisely where one left off is exceedingly useful and time efficient.

Also, this proof of the halting problem in the form of a Dr. Seuss style poem is nothing short of awesome.
How Dr. Seuss would prove the halting problem