QUOTES-CS-01 was last updated at Thu May 9 01:25:16 2002.
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For output we use the exclamation mark, and for input we use the inclamation mark. Um, question mark.
Rogerio de Lemos
"I go to the pub only if it is Saturday." Oh, this example uses alcohol; you can substitute "church" for "the pub" and "Sunday" for "Saturday" if you prefer.
Simon Thompson
In this course I'm going to teach you some of the theory of operating systems, using as examples some real operating systems. Oh, and Windows.
Bob Eager
Argh! It's taken me _three weeks_ to get this.
Tim Hopkins, upon entering KLT1 with a shiny new boardrubber to discover that the blackboards have been replaced with whiteboards
"I've been on courses about this: you stand at the front, you maintain eye contact with the students, and you get this wonderful flow of communication with the audience. Bollocks. Those people have never taught a group of Computer Science students." "Um, what was the question?"
Tim Hopkins and a random CS2 student
i can't believe what i heard in the co515 lecture today. simon thompson _isn't_ a spice girl? i walked all the way to keynes only to have my dreams shattered. :(
tl14 on ukc.cs.cs2 (after a predicate logic lecture in which Simon Thompson used "SpiceGirl()" as an example)
Scope extends as far as possible to the right, just like the Conservative Party.
Simon Thompson
So it's a sanity check: do I understand wireless LANs? The answer is "no".
Peter Linington, in a seminar on wireless LAN performance
"Any questions? Comments?" "I'm really impressed with the way you've managed to make Powerpoint look like your crappy old troff."
Peter Linington and Ian Utting
There was a question on the exam last year that asked you to explain the construction of twisted pair cable. You would have thought that "twisted pair" would have been a hint, but a significant number of people didn't guess that it might involve twisting, or two cables. One person drew a nice diagram of a satellite transmitting station.
Peter Kenny
How did the practical go? Did anyone do the optional work? That's OK, neither did I.
Ian Utting
... and the default servant just says "waah", which is fairly sensible behaviour for a default servant, as it says "waah" quite loudly to the server and says "waah" back to the client ...
Ian Utting, explaining CORBA
So what can you do about deadlocks? One option, which is taken from the Tanenbaum book [...] is to ignore it. I think this is a typical Tanenbaum solution... I think the best thing you can do with this option is to ignore it.
Gill Waters
"When are you around for questions?" "I'm around; I reserve the right to hide, though."
Random student and Ian Utting
"Why isn't our paper punched?" "We're trying to give you full value for the paper." "You never know, it's the upwards-compatible version. Once you punch the holes, you can't fill them back in..."
Random student, Ian Utting and Peter Linington
I write all my examples in a programming language noone's ever heard of called Matlab. This way, I don't get some geek at the back saying "Oh, sir, you left a comma out".
Tim Hopkins
Subject: Re: No CO806 timetable change The Subject, of course, should not have said "No". There is a CO806 timetable change.
John Bovey on ukc.cs.conv-msc
Please show working where necessary and provide justification for your results. The deal is that I'll give you as much feedback as you give me details of how you got the answer. Thus if you just provide an incorrect answer without any hint of how you arrived at it, I'll provide the feedback "Wrong".
Tim Hopkins
And the assessment this week is... oh, bugger.
Simon Thompson, upon flipping a slide and noticing that he's just done the assessment as an example
I don't read news. [...] Life's too short to spend my evenings reading some pile of bollocks on the newsgroups.
Tim Hopkins
A little man came to me with a question, from a department which shall remain nameless but I'll refer to as "Electronics". [...] ... so it'll take 10^1300 operations; this is several times the lifespan of the universe. And you could see the drops of reality sinking into his head.
Tim Hopkins
>>> If your java is no where near that level, and mine isn't, what on earth are >>> you supposed to do? >> a) try harder >tried that, java made just a little sense as it ever did. >> b) give up. >Did that mostly last year, You know what really depresses me? You still haven't seen the connection between these two statements.
jads1, mrf4, jads1 and Ian Utting on ukc.cs.cs2
Socket satan = new Socket("www.satan.hell", 666);
I'm guessing this is a standard service over there...Stefan Kahrs
In a shopping basket you can have 1kg of salt, a packet of crisps and a bottle of gin. Or if you're really pushing the boat out you can have two bottles of gin and a packet of crisps. It's more exciting than 1 kg of salt.
Simon Thompson
A 3rd year student came up to me and said "My software's deadlocking, and it's not my fault, it's yours". Now, when students say that to you normally...
Peter Welch talking about the big bug found in JCSP
And the server can then send_reply, or send_exception, or what on earth does send_other do?
Peter Linington, perplexed at his own slides
Don't mess with me, I've got a laser!
Peter Linington, to a student who left his phone on in a lecture
You can get up in the morning, create six universes, understand absolutely nothing about them because they don't work properly, and still be home in time for tea.
Neil Davis in a Networks and Distributed Systems Seminar
Well, we can solve the M25 problem, but we may have to kill a few cars.
Neil Davis in a Networks and Distributed Systems Seminar
People want a complete answer yesterday, and they want one they don't have to think about.
Neil Davis in a Networks and Distributed Systems Seminar
In computer science, if an idea is very good, it would be much better if it were made recursive.
Prof. Brian Randall in an Open Lecture
Oh, for a world in which all inputs can be guaranteed valid and all outputs can be guaranteed valid! In such a world the last half an hour would have been mostly redundant.
Prof. Brian Randall in an Open Lecture on Software Faults
Erm... keep going... hang yourself a bit more...
Prof. Brian Randall to Rogerio de Lemos in an Open Lecture on Software Faults
This is basically a question to Bob Eager: I have done this essay in emacs on a BSD machine. Will I get more marks if I: a) print it on a line printer and hand it in with all the little holes still attached and everything b) load it into word and waste a perfectly good day doing fonty stuff
rgt1 on ukc.cs.cs2
"Be able to defend and justify your decisions." If you're working in a corporate environment, I think you should have that on a brass plaque on your desk. You need to be able to do this so that people don't come and stab you in the back. Of course, when they come to stab you in the back, you can hit them with the plaque. *splat*
Duncan Langford
Alan Turing was a great man, but he lead a very troubled life. In particular, his sex life.
Sally Fincher
Yeah yeah! I've got such a buzz from the fileRead method, let's go take a look at the fileWrite method. I'm sure you lot all get a buzz from this too!
David Barnes
Chris Jones: "Are staff overworked then?" Ian Utting: "No shit, Sherlock!"
Oh, there is a copy of this book in the library, except there's only one and I've got it.
David Shrimpton
> "[The data link layer provides] a simplex, connectionless, > unreliable, unacknowledged, message stream service." Does that mean that if my code is simplex and unreliable, I have fullfilled 50% of the specs ?
Peter Kenny and dsla2 on ukc.cs.cs2
There appears to be a pair of scissors at the end of that number. On my PC that reads "33 and a third". It seems to be a function of moving to Windows 2000...
Gerald Tripp
"I can't quite remember what DSS stands for." "Digital Subscriber Signalling." "Could well be..." "That's what it says on your slide."
Dave Shrimpton and gar2
"Prim's Algorithm: Although named after Prim in 1957, it is now credited to Jarnik in 1930." But who cares, they're both dead.
Peter Rodgers
Is everyone awake yet? You're all looking rather dozy, and this is normally either because you're half asleep or I'm talking complete rubbish as normal, or a combination of the two... I don't mind if you're half asleep, but I do mind if I'm talking rubbish.
Dave Shrimpton
Life would be easier with computers if we didn't have end-users, but sadly they are something that are considered essential.
Dave Shrimpton
>> There seem to be some big black holes in the notes covering... waiting for >> a random time. in fact there is no mention of randomness at all in the >> notes. > Guess you should have gone to those seminars when it was all explained > then, 'eh james? Don't be so harsh, Ben. James has managed to turn up to to two whole seminar sessions this term. Its not his fault that this included the only one to be cancelled all year.
jads1, bcc3 and mrf4 on ukc.cs.cs2
... so if you want to replace "job" by "dole" -- I'm not implying anything about your third year...
Peter Rodgers
For the purposes of the DCG assessment for CO801, it is ok for mice and aardvarks to dance :-)
Aliy Fowler on ukc.cs.conv-msc
> I don't know if this is your personal opinion or university's policy but I > would like to see your reply to next year's broshure for prospective > students. Because the one that I received didn't mention anything like this. Presumably along the same lines we should also point out in the prospectus that we don't buy each student a personal yacht or provide a holiday in the West Indies.
ak24 and John Derrick on ukc.cs.conv-msc, talking about providing free lecture notes
> I think we should all hand in, for our specs, an obscene limerick and a > picture of a cute ikkle kitten. If it's not marked, what the hell :-) There was a small kitten from Chester Who education had begun to fester It took an MSc Studying at UKC But failed on low-level architecture
drm3 and bmd3 on ukc.cs.conv-msc
That's looking at last year's questions only, I imagine ... the questions may have been easy, but the answers clearly weren't.
Eerke Boiten on ukc.cs.cs3
First an assurrance that there will be only 5 Java lectures, 4 of which are in Michaelmas term. The reason the schedule lists currently 7 lectures is quite simply that John found manipulating existing html tables rather complicated
Stefan Kahrs on CO508 web page
Submissions and corrections to Adam Sampson <quotes@offog.org>