A Last Course for Summer

Well, it's been a crazy summer as I prepare to teach Programming Languages at Brown this fall. I'd like to thank everyone who took courses this summer.

This is just a quick note to say that there is still space available in my 1-day functional programming course The Functions, scheduled for August 30th.

At one point, I thought I might continue to offer courses throughout the fall, but I've decided that it's probably best for me not to multitask. Thus, I'll be exclusively focused on the Brown course for the next 3 months. My regular courses will resume in late December. I may have some new surprises later in 2024 as well.

Advanced Python Mastery - Released for Free

For more than a decade, I developed and taught a so-titled "Advanced Python Mastery" course that was primarily offered for on-site corporate training. I also offered this course in-person in my Chicago office until late 2018.

With the pandemic, the course largely went on inactive status. Since then, the primary focus of my teaching has focused more on projects, design, and CS fundamentals. As such, I've decided to release the Advanced Python Mastery course for free! You can now find it on GitHub.

Note: This course is entirely different than the "Advanced Programming with Python" course that I currently teach. The current course is more focused on design and problem solving than Python features.

Do Formal Systems Inform Actual Systems?

I've long had an interest in the practical aspects of "system building." Admittedly that's probably a bit vague, but I'd probably focus it on very concrete things like operating systems, networks, embedded systems, programming language implementation and things generally of that nature. Basically, it's actual code that has to work in the actual world to solve an actual problem.

Recently, however, I've developed a growing interest in more mathematically formal systems such as lambda calculus and category theory. At first glance, these topics appear to be so abstract, esoteric, and theoretical, it's hard to see how they might apply to anything practical. However, I'm not so sure. Perhaps there is something practical to be learned from formal systems.

On July 7, I gave a talk at TNG Big Tech Day, Munich where I explored the intersection of Raft, lambda calculus, and category theory. I've just posted a screencast of the talk to YouTube. Enjoy!

Write a Compiler, July 12-18, 2023

Just a quick note that I still have some space available in the upcoming Write a Compiler course that's scheduled for July 12-18, 2023. This the LAST opportunity to take this course in 2023 (next offering in January). It's also being offered on a slightly unusual schedule with the first three days scheduled Wednesday-Friday, a weekend break, and the final two days scheduled Mon-Tues.

Meanwhile, I hope you're having a great summer!

Cheers,
Dave

Thoughts on Sabbaticals

At colleges and universities, it is customary for professors to take an academic sabbatical every seven or eight years. The purpose of the sabbatical is not to take an extended surfing vacation, but to reinvigorate one's research, get new ideas, and make new connections without having to worry about the usual responsibilities of teaching or department service. Often this involves going somewhere else, usually to a different university, government research lab, or industry while still being paid.

Sabbaticals are a luxury--and something that is nearly impossible to pull off if you're self-employed. Sure, it's easy to simply take time off. However, it's the "going elsewhere" and "still getting paid" part that becomes a bit more challenging--especially if it's going to be something more than contract programming or consulting.

Taking a Sabbatical of Sorts

New Short Course: The Functions, June 15, 2023

Over the last four or five years, I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of functional programming. There are so many interesting and practical applications of functional techniques. Moreover, a functional perspective can have a major impact on library and API design.

Sadly, I feel like a lot of the discourse on many functional programming topics is too theoretical or inscrutable. Correcting this is something I’ve been exploring in my Advanced Programming with Python course–choosing to cover some very advanced concepts in a covert, yet more practical, manner.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to break this material out into its own 1-day course. If you’d like to expand your mind with a coverage of functional programming that’s so much more than just lambda and map, check out The Functions.

Courses for Summer 2023

I've just posted some new dates for courses this summer. There are a number of new and notable things.

• SICP, May 15-19, 2023. Last call for SICP in 2023! I still have a few spots available. The course makes a return in January, 2024. SICP is often described as having a "top-down" approach to problem solving that avoids getting into too many low-level technical details. In an age of AI generated coding (especially of low-level details), I now wonder if SICP might have been ahead of its time.

• Write a Compiler, July 12-18, 2023. Normally, I teach this course on a Monday-Friday schedule, but this time I'm splitting it across a weekend. The first three days will be taught Wednesday-Friday. The course resumes Monday-Tuesday after getting the weekend to rest.

• Rafting Trip, August 7-11, 2023. Andersonville farewell tour! LIVE and in-person in CHICAGO. As most of you know, the pandemic has had a huge impact on in-person teaching. I still have my fantastic teaching space in Chicago, but all such things have a time and place. I've decided to vacate the space and thought about what might make for a good sendoff. The Raft course seemed like a good match--at least if we all fail to implement Raft, we'll still be well fed!

• Advanced Programming with Python, August 21-25, 2023. This is probably the last week-long offering of this course for 2023. The week-long format will return in 2024. In the meantime, expect to see many parts of this course offered independently as "short courses" (see below).

I'm continuing to develop the one-day short-course format. The elevator problem continues thwart those who might think "how hard can it be to code an elevator?" I recently introduced the "Write Python" course where we learn about classes, object-oriented programming. Both of these courses make an appearance in June.

A New Short Course - Write Python - April 28, 2023

I continue to experiment with short courses. This time, it's another project adapted from my Advanced Programming with Python course that turns its eye to classes and some useful principles of object-oriented programming. What better way to understand Python objects than to build a small Python interpreter from scratch? If you want to give it a go you can find more information on the Write Python page.

Elevated - May 12, 2023

I continue to offer my new Elevated course. This time, you can catch it on a Friday. Are you up for the challenge?

Elevated (Round 2), April 17, 2023

I gave the first run of my “Elevated” course earlier this week. Many thanks to everyone who attended, survived, and offered feedback–which was mixed, but quite useful.

One of my main interests with respect to this course relates to the process of problem solving. How do you break down a problem into parts? How do manage complexity? How do you decide what’s important and what’s not important? How do you test it?

From a teaching perspective, it’s always a bit of a delicate balance. Should I try to simplify the problem as much as possible to ensure total success? Or should I just unleash a pack of wolves to chase everyone into a pool of sharks? Personally, I tend to have a preference for the latter because it often leads to more interesting outcomes. However, it’s often difficult to know how many wolves and sharks to unleash.

Making Bad Lists Impossible

David Beazley (https://www.dabeaz.com)
April 2, 2023

One idea in the creation of reliable software is the practice of making invalid states impossible. This post isn’t so much about that, but about a similar problem involving data. It’s motivated by an issue that arises in my Rafting Trip course, but I’ve tried to simplify it a bit.

A Weird List Append

The if-return

The other day, I came across someone questioning the following coding idiom:

def some_func(): 
    ... 
    if condition: 
        return True 
    else: 
        return False

Clearly such code must be written by a rank amateur. Why not this?

Elevated - April 3, 2023

One of my all-time favorite "small" programming problems is the "Elevator Problem" that's part of my Advanced Programming with Python course. In short, you're tasked with the problem of implementing the control logic for a simple elevator. How hard could that be?

Elevators are something that you use all of the time, but maybe never think much about. Elevators are diabolical. Apparently, repeated stair climbing due to a broken elevator even inspired the creation of Rust!

Solving the elevator problem involves a little bit of everything all at once. Domain modeling, design patterns, event-driven programming, testing, simulation, different programming techniques (functional, object-oriented, logic, etc.)--it's all there is you know where to go looking for it. Moreover, I've found that learning how to organize a solution has proven to be rather useful for other complex projects.

New Newsletter, Parser Combinators, Courses, and More

David Beazley (@dabeaz)
March 4, 2023

Newsletter Migration

After a stint of newsletter hosting at TinyLetter, I've decided to migrate my newsletter to ButtonDown. The deal-breaker was the ability to author the newsletter using markdown--which is a real benefit for code examples and other things. Welcome!