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I wish they’d be more courses on compilers that also serve as language servers. The current world is moving towards a phase where a language needs IDE tooling s

by nojvek 6y ago

I wish they’d be more courses on compilers that also serve as language servers. The current world is moving towards a phase where a language needs IDE tooling such as compilers, linters, formatters, REPL, language servers, debuggers and profilers. Would love to see a high level course that covers how to build the tooling for a great developer experience.

petr_tik 6y ago
As i mentioned in another thread, a uni course that has students work on an existing codebase instead of writing something from scratch might be even better - though harder to grade. Imagine if one could do a major feature contribution to clangd/pyls/rust-analyzer as part of their advanced compilers course. The student gets a better understanding of (open-source) software development practices, gains a deeper proficiency in the language (not just the APIs), the project brings new contributors and users (including the student herself) benefit from the new feature. Double bubble!
- weakfish 6y ago
  My uni, NC State, has a course (CSC 326) called Software Engineering that has students contribute to an existing project created by the staff in teams, with the best contributions being merged into master for the next semester students to work on.
  - petterparker 6y ago
    Same here in Munich, we've had a course on software-testing in OOP-languages and had to write unit-tests for some modules of jenkins which were graded and eventually merged into master.
  - petr_tik 6y ago
    That sounds pretty cool. Do you get a choice of what kind of project you want to contribute to?
    - weakfish 6y ago
      Sorry - should've been more clear. It's a project written by the staff in Java and Angular. It's been used continuously through the years, evolving each semester with the best contributions being merged. I believe it's a health management service, I haven't taken the course yet.

by nojvek 6y ago

petr_tik 6y ago

As i mentioned in another thread, a uni course that has students work on an existing codebase instead of writing something from scratch might be even better - though harder to grade. Imagine if one could do a major feature contribution to clangd/pyls/rust-analyzer as part of their advanced compilers course. The student gets a better understanding of (open-source) software development practices, gains a deeper proficiency in the language (not just the APIs), the project brings new contributors and users (including the student herself) benefit from the new feature. Double bubble!

weakfish 6y ago
My uni, NC State, has a course (CSC 326) called Software Engineering that has students contribute to an existing project created by the staff in teams, with the best contributions being merged into master for the next semester students to work on.
- petterparker 6y ago
  Same here in Munich, we've had a course on software-testing in OOP-languages and had to write unit-tests for some modules of jenkins which were graded and eventually merged into master.
- petr_tik 6y ago
  That sounds pretty cool. Do you get a choice of what kind of project you want to contribute to?
  - weakfish 6y ago
    Sorry - should've been more clear. It's a project written by the staff in Java and Angular. It's been used continuously through the years, evolving each semester with the best contributions being merged. I believe it's a health management service, I haven't taken the course yet.