Changes 10/16/14 - NSF Meetup
NSF Meetup:
- Talked with Kevin and another guy (can't remember his name, sorry) about threading. Kevin suggested that the threads shouldn't be directly popping off of the queue, but instead be interacting with a middleman. However, I'm not sure that this is necessary, as this object (as I imagine it, at least) wouldn't really be adding any functionality, but instead would just act as a redundant intermediary between the threads and the queue.
- We also talked about my problems with ThreadPool#join_all. I learned that the ConditionVariable#broadcast method will wake up all the threads waiting on it, as opposed to ConditionVariable#signal, which wakes up only one. However, since Queue.pop already pauses the thread, I'm not sure that my ConditionVariable is even necessary
- I also talked more about what I want to do in college. I said that one of the reasons I don't like the math-heavy portions of programming is that I don't want to feel like a burden on anyone else. In college, I would have professors whose whole job is to make sure that the students understand the information. In high school, though, neither I nor my teachers have time to do this type of thing.
This is a great discussion, and I'm most happy Kevin started it. As we discussed in class, there are a number of "college survival skills" that you should know about before you get to college. Self initiative is, in my mind, part of the hidden curriculum you will be tested on in college. I learned quickly that meeting classmates and organizing study groups (I have many fond memories of the hours I spent in one of the library meeting rooms with a 4 or 5 other classmates working through material together) are important parts of successfully navigating college. I think that this is actually one of the most useful things you can learn, since it will continue to pay dividends in your professional life as well.
ReplyDelete