Jodrey School of Computer Science Acadia University SEMINAR PRESENTATION

Friday, November 25, 2016

1:30 PM

BAC 141

 

“In the Name of Performance”

 

Samuel Coleman

 

 

Abstract

During an undergraduate computer science degree, you’ll generally produce two sorts of code: very well-organized and aesthetically pleasing code which you’ll never touch after the assignment has been submitted, and awkward balls of mud which you’ll never touch after the assignment has been submitted. In industry, it is far more common to encounter the latter and without the saving grace of disposability. The C language; in particular, easily lends itself to the production of dense, incomprehensible code. In this talk, I’m going to unravel two different snippets: the notorious “Duff’s device”, and a rather hairy mechanism for determining how many bits are set in an integer. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate both some techniques for breaking down poorly-understood code and enforce a healthy fear of unnecessarily complicated code even if it’s only a few lines long.

 

About The Presenter

Sam Coleman graduated from the Jodrey School of Computer Science with the Class of 2015. He works (“works”) in oceanographic instrumentation in Ottawa, Ontario. In his spare time, he enjoys cats, guitars, and ISO 8601.

 

Everyone is welcome to attend

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