The march of progress...
10.04.14 Chryssy and Jack: A Website!
Today, we created our website. Chryssy has worked with Weebly before, so we opted to work with what we know. It is very user-friendly, so Jack will quickly pick it up.
Making the website and establishing our page headers has helped us clarify the direction of our project. We know what questions we want answered and what direction we will go in answering them.
We look forward to adding more to the website as we progress with our research and presentation.
Today, we created our website. Chryssy has worked with Weebly before, so we opted to work with what we know. It is very user-friendly, so Jack will quickly pick it up.
Making the website and establishing our page headers has helped us clarify the direction of our project. We know what questions we want answered and what direction we will go in answering them.
We look forward to adding more to the website as we progress with our research and presentation.
10.13.14 Chryssy: Researching...
I am having a beast of a time trying to research this project. So much of my knowledge of parsing comes from what I've learned in CSCI 205 and 220. I learned some from lectures, but most of what I've learned is from digging in and writing programs that use parsing functions as well as parsing functions themselves. I remember writing my own version of cstrtok last semester that also converted case and all that jazz.
When I dug into the mechanics of parsing and really got to understanding it, I could make logical inferences on how these types of functions could be used in the larger world. I did not read anywhere that parsers are used to look for curse words in chat rooms; it just makes sense that they would.
Yet, part of this project is to expand the researcher's understanding of a particular aspect of computing. What I am doing is researching some more examples of parsing functions and the history of parsing. I found a website with some history as well as some in Chapman's book. I am also looking for specific definitions of parsing and lexical analysis.
I must say, I did not think my English 305 class would directly impact my Computer Science classes as much as it does here. In that class, I learned some pretty awesome research skills, methods and tricks. I must remember to thank Dr. Pennington and Anthony Sigismondi for all I learned in that class.
I am having a beast of a time trying to research this project. So much of my knowledge of parsing comes from what I've learned in CSCI 205 and 220. I learned some from lectures, but most of what I've learned is from digging in and writing programs that use parsing functions as well as parsing functions themselves. I remember writing my own version of cstrtok last semester that also converted case and all that jazz.
When I dug into the mechanics of parsing and really got to understanding it, I could make logical inferences on how these types of functions could be used in the larger world. I did not read anywhere that parsers are used to look for curse words in chat rooms; it just makes sense that they would.
Yet, part of this project is to expand the researcher's understanding of a particular aspect of computing. What I am doing is researching some more examples of parsing functions and the history of parsing. I found a website with some history as well as some in Chapman's book. I am also looking for specific definitions of parsing and lexical analysis.
I must say, I did not think my English 305 class would directly impact my Computer Science classes as much as it does here. In that class, I learned some pretty awesome research skills, methods and tricks. I must remember to thank Dr. Pennington and Anthony Sigismondi for all I learned in that class.
10.28.14 Jack: Setting up the program
Just set up an outline for the program and started a function to detect the string "DCP".
Just set up an outline for the program and started a function to detect the string "DCP".
11.01.14 Chryssy: Organizing my research
As I mentioned in my previous post, researching this topic has been a beast. Either the information I've found is hyper-specific to particular languages or grammar structures, or it's so technical that it's hard to break that vast text into smaller, more basic -- more teachable -- nuggets. (Yes, I'm having a hard time parsing my research on parsing.) Eventually, I found what I needed, but it was a mess. One text has something on lexical analysis. Another has some examples. I have two semesters of class notes to sort through. One comment on one day, another comment a week or a month later, et cetera. It's all over the place.
I'm trying to figure out the best way to present all of this in a logical way. Should I give examples of parsers before I tell them specifically what it is? Will that help them process it? Or, should I explain how parsers work, giving little mini examples as I go? Furthermore, how much detail do I go into? I want them to be intrigued and have a base of knowledge going into Advanced Data Structures next semester, but I only have 20 minutes. (Well, about 10 because Jack has 10).
I'm working through this and I hope it all helps my classmates understanding parsing better going into next semester.
As I mentioned in my previous post, researching this topic has been a beast. Either the information I've found is hyper-specific to particular languages or grammar structures, or it's so technical that it's hard to break that vast text into smaller, more basic -- more teachable -- nuggets. (Yes, I'm having a hard time parsing my research on parsing.) Eventually, I found what I needed, but it was a mess. One text has something on lexical analysis. Another has some examples. I have two semesters of class notes to sort through. One comment on one day, another comment a week or a month later, et cetera. It's all over the place.
I'm trying to figure out the best way to present all of this in a logical way. Should I give examples of parsers before I tell them specifically what it is? Will that help them process it? Or, should I explain how parsers work, giving little mini examples as I go? Furthermore, how much detail do I go into? I want them to be intrigued and have a base of knowledge going into Advanced Data Structures next semester, but I only have 20 minutes. (Well, about 10 because Jack has 10).
I'm working through this and I hope it all helps my classmates understanding parsing better going into next semester.
11.02.14 Jack Ward: Program Development
I changed the function isDCP to isWord so I can check to see if the string contains any word I want.
I changed the function isDCP to isWord so I can check to see if the string contains any word I want.
11.03.14 Jack: Almost done!
Finished putting some final touches on the program to check for special cases.
Finished putting some final touches on the program to check for special cases.
11.10.14 Jack: Tweaking the program
I added one more case that I forgot. I needed the word "Man" to change to something more applicable. I also created a few slides for the presentation containing both code and pseudo code to explain my parsing program to the class. I met with Chryssy and after a few finishing touches, out project and presentation should be ready to go.
I added one more case that I forgot. I needed the word "Man" to change to something more applicable. I also created a few slides for the presentation containing both code and pseudo code to explain my parsing program to the class. I met with Chryssy and after a few finishing touches, out project and presentation should be ready to go.
11.14.14 Chryssy: So good to be done...
On a day filled with robotics (seriously... everyone but us on Thursday presented about some aspect of robotics!), our presentation seemed an anomaly. Even when I look at the whole of the presentations, ours sticks out. We presented about programming methods; everyone else presented on technology. I'm not sure which is better (if there even is a "better"), but I know ours was different.
We went into this presentation with a unique perspective: we have had Advanced Data Structures and no one else in the class has. We wanted to research something we have taken for granted and introduce something new (ish) to the other students.
I know this presentation wasn't "cool." There were no robots with knives, no self-driving cars, and no bionic eyes. But we tried to be useful, practical and present on something everyone in Computer Science uses. Honestly, everyone parses data everyday. We take input into our own minds from the environment around us and break it down into smaller pieces, the reassemble that data in a meaningful way.
I feel good about our presentation. We stayed within the time limits, we stayed on topic, and we provided a great hands-on example. This was a great experience and I'm glad I had Jack as my teammate.
On a day filled with robotics (seriously... everyone but us on Thursday presented about some aspect of robotics!), our presentation seemed an anomaly. Even when I look at the whole of the presentations, ours sticks out. We presented about programming methods; everyone else presented on technology. I'm not sure which is better (if there even is a "better"), but I know ours was different.
We went into this presentation with a unique perspective: we have had Advanced Data Structures and no one else in the class has. We wanted to research something we have taken for granted and introduce something new (ish) to the other students.
I know this presentation wasn't "cool." There were no robots with knives, no self-driving cars, and no bionic eyes. But we tried to be useful, practical and present on something everyone in Computer Science uses. Honestly, everyone parses data everyday. We take input into our own minds from the environment around us and break it down into smaller pieces, the reassemble that data in a meaningful way.
I feel good about our presentation. We stayed within the time limits, we stayed on topic, and we provided a great hands-on example. This was a great experience and I'm glad I had Jack as my teammate.
11.14.14 Jack: Final Thoughts
I thought the presentation went fairly well. I thought we delivered the information we wanted to in a way that was easy enough to understand, even if some of our audience hasn't had Advanced Data Structures. I don't know if we came off quite as interesting as the rest of the presentations, but I thought our information was useful, well organized, and generally well delivered. The only thing I would change about our presentation is the number of visuals. I think I could have spiced things up a bit had I put together some gifs of input examples to run in the background while I was explaining my program. I do think that, in most cases, we were able to compensate for our lack of visuals with crowd participation. I also think students were interested because they knew it pertained to them. I think it was a good use of time to introduce our audience to a concept they will be most likely studying in the future.
I thought the presentation went fairly well. I thought we delivered the information we wanted to in a way that was easy enough to understand, even if some of our audience hasn't had Advanced Data Structures. I don't know if we came off quite as interesting as the rest of the presentations, but I thought our information was useful, well organized, and generally well delivered. The only thing I would change about our presentation is the number of visuals. I think I could have spiced things up a bit had I put together some gifs of input examples to run in the background while I was explaining my program. I do think that, in most cases, we were able to compensate for our lack of visuals with crowd participation. I also think students were interested because they knew it pertained to them. I think it was a good use of time to introduce our audience to a concept they will be most likely studying in the future.