Catching up on chapter 3

Reading through chapter 3 we come across this:

which is not a properly defined recursive function.  The text then goes on to say

"Superficially, the reason appears to be that it defines f'(n) in terms of the value of f' at a larger argument, f'(n+1). It is true that it does not define a function, but our reasoning as to why that is so is not adequate."

and then goes on to show how it is equivalent to this

in efforts to somehow dispel our previous faulty reasoning.
I'm struggling to see how writing the function in this latter sense with a =>  in the place of a > somehow mediates the concern that it's defined in terms of higher and not lower terms... because it still is defined in terms of higher terms.  Maybe it has to do with no proper base case?  I'm not sure I get it. I'm going to as the T.A.s

Sights on the Weekend

This past Monday's quiz was the first I've struggled with.  Moreover, I no longer feel like I'm on top of the content we're covering in class during lecture. I am pleased with my current standing in the course but I feel like in order to maintain this level I'm going to have to put in some serious hours.

This weekend (if I ever actually get to Friday, that is #MidtermMadness) will be dedicated among other things to catching up on the content covered since the midterm as well as making a significant dent in A2, if not finishing it.  Looking forward, I suspect that the content in the end portion of the course will be difficult for me and so I do need to solidly understand our current topics in order to be able to succeed then.

Among my planned A2 adventures is learning LaTeX, finally. Woohoo!

Relevant:

Midterm Reflections

Overall, I'm very happy with how the midterm went. I though it was fair and of an appropriate length. There was definitely some panic that settled in during the few days leading up while cdf was down but in all, I have no complaints about.

I'm eager to get it back, particularly to see how the third (Structural Induction) question was marked.  I'm confident in my answer, but I struggled to present it in what I felt was a tidy, concise format. It felt verbose.

In a similar vein,  I feel slightly awkward stating the Induction Hypothesis for complete induction. In my mind I know what it needs to be, but expressing it symbolically I usually resort to some sort of "true for all i element of {0,...,n} which doesn't seem right.  Even though it conveys the same message, I feel like we've been writing it with an inequality, and that I should be doing the same.

This last point kept getting skimmed over in my review sessions. It was just a presentation detail, and so in studying I wanted to make sure I understood key concepts first before I fine tuned their presentation.  I was thankful today in Tutorial when I got quiz 2 back with some helpful red scribbles rephrasing my poorly stated I.H..  That was exactly the kind of pointer I needed, and now I know!

Looking forwards
I missed Friday's class, but the slides tell me we've started Time Complexity.  I can't remember from 165 if I rocked at this or totally blew it .... but I remember all the key ideas so in all honestly it can't have been that bad.  I need to review those slides. I also need to go over closed form formulas.  Though I understand them when they are presented to me, I seriously struggle deriving them myself.

Term Test 1

LET'S GO.

Expedience

So I'm none too pleased about not being able to hand-write our assignments.  However I'm appeasing myself with the justification that it's about time I learned how to write LaTeX anyways.  Another upside is the white-out to be saved.  Hooray, saved white-out!

I was going to do a live-blog (slog?) titled "Adventures in LaTeX" about downloading, understand and using the LyX editor, but with Thanksgiving weekend fast approaching and no spare time on the horizon I'm resigning myself to struggling through MS Word for this assignment.  Understanding LyX and the WYSIWYM paradigm will simply have to wait until A2.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed I'm not doing myself a disfavour here! Hopefully I'll be able to express myself symbolically in Word without too much hassle. I'm open to the possibility that the finicky nature of Word's typesetting functions will actually cost me more time, but I'll risk it.

As a point of interest, this particular criterion of the assignment (no hand-written work) has given me a new article idea. If any of you, dear readers, are members of New College watch out for an opinion piece in issue 3 of The Window --which should be out November 1st--  about how the prevalence and availability of technology is impacting our learning experience. I'll probably also throw something in there about the student right to submit hand-written assignments as stated by UTSU vs. the advantages of early adoption (though LaTeX isn't exactly new at this point in the game....) and how the standpoints should and do vary according to discipline. Thanks, CSC236, for an article!

Now, to go plow through a field of superscript corrections...

Adventures in LaTeX

I'm none too pleased about not being allowed to hand write our assignments. However, I'm appeasing myself with the justification that it's about time I learned how to write LaTeX anyways. Another upside is the white-out to be saved. Hooray, saved white-out!

This is going to be a live-blog (sLog?). What I mean by this, is that in a similar vein to live-tweeting and event, I will be live blogging this event.  Here we go! I'm starting at the course homepage, and clicking through to the "a1.tex" file.
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OK. So I probably should have expected as much but the .tex file just opens in my browser like a .txt file. Must find an environment....

Settling with LyX. After trying to find an online editor, and failing, and then trying see if I could export a .tex file from word or notepad or something, and failing, I've conceded to downloading a new program. After some research into what program that should be, I've settled with LyX.

Wikipedia tells me LyX is WYSIWYM, not WYSIWYG. After reading Alex's struggle with this paradigm, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll just intuitively understand it.
(Side note - I love installers. So seamless! One day I'm going to learn how to make installers and it's going to be glorious.)
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I have come to the decision that it will be more fruitful to actually read the LyX intro/documentation/tutorial than it will be to simply keep my fingers crossed.  So...I'll let you guys know how that goes?

Over, and out.