mattmight

14 ms·

1. 91.▲
   by mattmight 14y ago

   The FDA has a special protocol in place for rare cases like my son. If we get everything done properly, approval could be granted within 30 days. But, before we can apply to the FDA, we have to get Genzyme to agree to make a variant suitabl
2. 92.▲
   by mattmight 14y ago

   Remarkably, the cost of the exomic sequencing is a small fraction of what we spent on individual genetic tests over three years. Exomic sequencing is so efficient that it will likely replace testing for individual genetic disorders one-by-o
3. 93.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   Thanks for the kind words! These recent posts are part of the lecture notes for my "Scripting Language Design and Implementation" course. There are slides that go along with some of them: http://matt.might.net/teaching/scripting-languages/
4. 94.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   True. To be fair, I noted this limitation in the example, and said that if the nesting structure is important, you should use a tool that can handle context-free languages. My more general warning was that if you find yourself exploiting th
5. 95.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   Read the AWK section of the article. It covers about 90% of AWK, but in condensed form. For using AWK, try the resources linked at the bottom of the article, like Eric Pement's one-liners and Bruce Barnett's page: http://www.grymoire.com
6. 96.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   Thanks for catching that! It's fixed.
7. 97.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   Agreed. awk, in particular, is a great not-too-hot, not-too-cold ad hoc database engine for shell scripts where firing up MySQL would just be overkill.
8. 98.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   I just posted an update. Thanks for pointing this out!
9. 99.▲
   by mattmight 15y ago

   That's the exercise at the bottom of the page. ;) I hope my students don't see this comment. Edit: Thanks for "encrypting" your post. Decrypting it in one tweet's worth of sed will be next Tuesday's homework.
10. 100.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    You can also memoize recursive functions transparently with a memoizing fixed-point (Y) combinator: http://matt.might.net/articles/implementation-of-recursive-f... The example is also Fibonacci.
11. 101.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    I have two brothers. My wife has three sisters.
12. 102.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    You're so right. That lower window is a great idea! Upgraded.
13. 103.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Thanks for the pointer! I've updated the post with this and several other simplifications sent in by readers.
14. 104.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    I learned Dvorak to help with RSI. It worked. I'm fast at Dvorak after 4 years (90 wpm), but not as fast as I was with Qwerty (120 wpm). Dvorak has a pleasant "rolling" finger feel and my wrists never ache, so I've kept it. What fascinated
15. 105.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    I agree that there could be negative side effects to living on White Castle alone. I'm certainly not advocating a deliberately unhealthy diet either. But, I've noticed among friends and relatives trying to lose weight that when they start,
16. 106.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    It depends on what you're applying for. For undergrad transfers or a terminal masters applicant, industry recs are generally OK. For a Ph.D. student, not much more than one industry rec would be commonly permissible, unless they're from an
17. 107.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    The short answer is yes, you need to do this to get great letters. Strong and frequent participation, interaction and enthusiasm for the subject in class should get you a "good" letter--or at least more than the "She got an A in my compil
18. 108.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    If you've had good class participation and you can provide your resume in condensed, bullet-point form, you should be able to get decent or good (but not great) recommendations.
19. 109.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Writing your own letter happens, but usually in academia, the prof will request a .txt file to modify/strip the adverbs. If it's been a few years, update the prof on things you've done since then, how what you learned in their course helped
20. 110.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    I'm glad it helped! Honestly, I didn't know what a teaching statement was either. Fortunately, no one reads them.
21. 111.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Resend after a week, with the first email below. If that fails, try again a week later with a fresh email. Lots of profs (myself included) have a crushing inbox overload. We expect to be re-emailed with critical stuff. Never take radio sil
22. 112.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Thanks for the kind words!
23. 113.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    It was a normal compilers class. We compiled Python. This was just an exercise for week one.
24. 114.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Would you like a "Compiling over to the pi-calculus" article?
25. 115.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Great suggestions. I was about to add GEB, but realized it doesn't quite fit under any category. I could add a "general" reading list, but do you think it fits in a category?
26. 116.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    To be clear: I consider understanding version control essential. I'll emphasize it. I agree that OCaml and SML are roughly interchangeable for educational purposes. I picked SML because it's slightly "cleaner." As a compilers prof, I agree
27. 117.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Great point! I'll make that an explicit point under architecture and PL.
28. 118.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    I agree. I'll split it out into its own section.
29. 119.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    Machine learning gets a nod under AI.
30. 120.▲
    by mattmight 15y ago

    This is a great suggestion. I'll add this in to the article. Politeness is so important that I've set my email "signature" to "Thanks!" More often than not, it's appropriate to leave it in.