Difference between revisions of "Class Journal Week 3"

Revision as of 06:27, 21 September 2015

Nicole Anguiano

1. Pull out a quote from the first two sections of “What is Code?” that you think directly relates to what you experienced in the individual portion of this assignment. Explain why this quote is particularly resonant for you.
   • "Every character truly, truly matters. Every single stupid misplaced semicolon, space where you meant tab, bracket instead of a parenthesis—mistakes can leave the computer in a state of panic. The trees don’t know where to put their leaves. Their roots decay. The boxes don’t stack neatly. For not only are computers as dumb as a billion marbles, they’re also positively Stradivarian in their delicacy."
     • This quote is relevant for me not only in this assignment, but throughout the entire course of my learning as a computer scientist. So many errors are caused simply by a single character being mistyped. The number of times I forgot the / after the sed "y/words/words/" command was a little excessive. I've struggled through countless bugs that were caused only by the misplacing of a simple semicolon or space, usually only realizing my mistake after hours of struggling through trying to solve the problem. While I didn't experience quite that level of frustration on this assignment, it definitely came up. Rarely was my mistake caused by a mistake in an algorithm or the inability to think of a solution. Rather, the majority of the errors were caused by problems with the syntax. Seeing this quote made me laugh simply because of how true it is.
2. What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
   • It is easily apparent that computer science and biology are primarily male-dominated fields. Perhaps just because of my upbringing, I don't particularly view this as a serious issue. I believe that women can choose whatever they wish to become in the future, whether it's in a STEM field such as computer science or biology or not. I have been nothing but encouraged to continue along my path in computer science, and have felt nothing but support from my male peers. That being said, I do believe that there have been inappropriate comments made to me and to my other female peers that perhaps would have not been made to a male peer, and I have felt occasionally that my abilities have been underestimated, perhaps due in large part to the fact that I am female. However, I have always proven my abilities and proven that I am no less able than my male peers. Regarding the inappropriate comments, I believe that there are people who are unprofessional and inappropriate in every field. In my experience, the majority view me as equals despite my gender. While I have no doubt that there are those that have had very different experiences from myself, I believe that women can choose for themselves whatever career they want to pursue, and should be able to make that choice without being pressured to enter into any field, including a STEM field.
3. What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
   • At this point, I am quite comfortable with the command line. The command line is best learned simply through experience, and it can be awkward and uncomfortable to learn at first due to the incredibly simple user interface and lack of any real guidance. However, with experience (and googling!), the command line can be mastered just like anything else. To become increasingly more effective with the command line, I know that I must simply practice more.

- Nanguiano (talk) 13:11, 12 September 2015 (PDT)

Emily Simso

• Code is inert. How do you make it ert? You run software that transforms it into machine language. The word “language” is a little ambitious here, given that you can make a computing device with wood and marbles. Your goal is to turn your code into an explicit list of instructions that can be carried out by interconnected logic gates, thus turning your code into something that can be executed—software.
  • I think this code is relevant to the individual assignment because if offers a basic explanation of how code can execute functions and this week was my first exposure to writing code. For the assignment, we had to piece together different functions to create the order of amino acids from the mRNA. Our code could then be "executed" into proteins after being run through the commands. This quote helped me to understand how different instructions are used to produce the final product.

• What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
  • I think that gender issues are still very prevalent to STEM subjects, including computer science and biology. While gender equality is making progress in these areas, there is still bias present. People still assume that males are more equipped to work in these areas due to old bias and traditions linked to when women would stay home to raise a family. These issues still exist because people can assume that women will not want to work in STEM because they want to raise a family when, in reality, women are fully able to either do both or not raise a family to pursue their career. That being said, our generation is much more open to gender equality than past generations. At LMU I feel a great deal of support from male peers and professors to pursue a biology career, but I've been questioned from people a generation above me. I am excited to enter into STEM because I think every time a woman pursues that sort of career, it is a step in the right direction for equality.

• What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
  • I need a lot of practice to get comfortable with the command line. I think I also need to review all of the commands we've learned in class (and on the wiki) so that everything is clear in my head.

Emilysimso (talk) 11:17, 20 September 2015 (PDT)

Brandon Klein

1. Pull out a quote from the first two sections of “What is Code?” that you think directly relates to what you experienced in the individual portion of this assignment. Explain why this quote is particularly resonant for you.
   • "A computer is a clock with benefits. They all work the same, doing second-grade math, one step at a time: Tick, take a number and put it in box one. Tick, take another number, put it in box two. Tick, operate (an operation might be addition or subtraction) on those two numbers and put the resulting number in box one. Tick, check if the result is zero, and if it is, go to some other box and follow a new set of instructions. You, using a pen and paper, can do anything a computer can; you just can’t do those things billions of times per second. And those billions of tiny operations add up."
     • This quote directly articulates the appreciation I further developed for computer science during this week's individual assignment. During last week's assignment, I manually performed a collection of algorithms that I have applied many times as a biology major: constructing the complement of a DNA strand through complementary base parings, transcription of DNA to mRNA, and translation from mRNA to protein. Although these algorithms are simple, applying them to the genome of a human being becomes an immensely more difficult task based on sheer quantity of information. The genome of one human is so immense that, as Moody articulated in his article "Digital Code of Life", a simple "bare listing representing these letters would require roughly 3,000 books each of 330 pages-a pile about 60 meters high" (7). Applying even simple algorithms by hand to this quantity of information would be a seemingly impossible, if not impractical, task. Yet the fact that we can indeed perform such operations is a testament to the sheer processing power of computers. The pipelines we created this week in the individual assignment may have been simple, but their application to even relatively short sequences of nucleotides immediately saved a great deal of time. It is this power that enables us to manipulate entire genomes.
2. What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
   • Issues of social equality are very dear to me, and I thus go out of my way to advocate gender equality when possible. As such, I find it very disappointing to hear of the gender disparities present within the field of computer science. Programming is a field driven not only by the specialized technical knowledge that is available to anyone willing to apply their mind, but also by the creativity that is uniquely possessed by every individual. When we discourage those who have the inclination and drive to pursue careers in computing, everyone loses. Unfortunately, the issue or gender equality is not much better in the field of biology. Although undergraduate programs in biology are often slightly female dominated, there is a lingering issue commonly referred to as the "leaky pipeline" problem. The higher up one goes in the study of biology, the more male dominated the field becomes. This is particularly apparent when considering tenured professors at elite universities or participants in the labs of award winning researchers. This pipeline issue is much more dramatic in computer science. Hopefully, this general disparity in STEM professions will be eliminated as time passes.
3. What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
   • As my prior experience with the program R suggests, I will grow more confident with the command line as I accumulate more practice. Using the command line from scratch is, at some level, like learning another language. The way the Linux commands will stick is by repeatedly using them and associating them with their applications. You can review and study these terms as much as you like, but only practice will really make the information stick. Thus, I am hoping to continue practicing and accumulating confidence with the command line as time passes.

-- Bklein7 (talk) 15:52, 20 September 2015 (PDT)

Brandon Litvak

1. Pull out a quote from the first two sections of “What is Code?” that you think directly relates to what you experienced in the individual portion of this assignment. Explain why this quote is particularly resonant for you.
   • Quote: “A sequence of symbols (using typical keyboard characters, saved to a file of some kind) that someone typed in, or copied, or pasted from elsewhere. That doesn’t mean the other kinds of coding aren’t valid or won’t help you achieve your goals. Coding is a broad human activity, like sport, or writing… Code is inert. How do you make it ert? You run software that transforms it into machine language…”
     • This quote was compelling because it clarified and broadened my concept of code. It made me further realize that code is, fundamentally, just sets of text/characters that are put into action by software; code is information that is eventually boiled down into something that a computer can understand and execute. The quote (specifically, “A sequence of symbols (using typical keyboard characters, saved to a file of some kind)…”) reminded me of the portion of the week 3 individual assignment that involved exploiting genetic-code.sed in order to find the 6 reading frames of a nucleotide sequence. genetic-code.sed is just a file that lists a set of text/character combinations that happen to be interpreted by the software as a set of sed replacement commands that correspond to various patterns. The “code” kept in the genetic-code.sed, by itself and outside of the context of UNIX, is seemingly inert and worthless. However, in the context of UNIX and through the power of sed commands, this “code” was integral in doing some fairly incredible stuff (like creating several chains of commands that can convert a DNA sequence into an amino acid sequence).
2. What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
   • CS definitely feels like a field that is heavily skewed towards males in terms of numbers but I feel that this gender disparity is slowly being improved upon. It is a great thing that many companies, and organizations, are spearheading initiatives (and putting down a lot of capital) to encourage women into CS and other male-dominated areas. I also feel that the general public as a whole is very ignorant of the facts/underlying principles of CS; more work should be done to further encourage public engagement and interest with computer science. I think that the gender situation is very different in biology and in the other life sciences. I definitely feel that the climate in biology (and in jobs related to biology) is more positive for women than that of CS. From what I’ve read and heard, CS and fields like physics are both very male-dominated and are often fraught with gender harassment.
3. What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
   • I think that practice and repetition will allow me to get more comfortable/capable with the various UNIX commands. Personal experiments and projects, however, will help me to learn how to use the many commands together (in order to perform more advanced tasks). Overall, I feel that I have made good progress, so far, in understanding the command line; there definitely is so much to improve upon/learn and I feel that consistent practice will strengthen my current understanding and permit me to do more interesting things in the future.

Blitvak (talk) 18:14, 20 September 2015 (PDT)

Erich Yanoschik

1. Pull out a quote from the first two sections of “What is Code?” that you think directly relates to what you experienced in the individual portion of this assignment. Explain why this quote is particularly resonant for you.
   • “What I’m saying is, I’m one of 18 million. So that’s what I’m writing: my view of software development, as an individual among millions. Code has been my life, and it has been your life, too. It is time to understand how it all works.”
     • The fact that coding and program development has been such a relevant part of my life and I have yet to comprehend how it works. I took a Visual Basics class in high school and MATLAB, learned a few phrases and could get a program to run once I understood the syntax and proper structuring procedures. I have always wanted to understand how it all works, how hardware converts to software. How data is saved and altered in the physical world. There are roughly 7 billion people in the world, most all benefit from the net in some way or another. There are only 18 million coders keeping the net alive and evolving. The main reason why I took this class is to gain a greater understanding of how it all works and find out where I could fit into the mix.
2. What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
   • The computer doesn’t see gender; all it sees is the input of the coder. The better software speaks for itself; the superior coders birth the superior programs. If a company wants to stay relevant in this day and age, the best software engineer should be chosen regardless of gender. This translates well with biology, the one who puts in the time required to gain the knowledge needed to succeed in the field will flourish. Although throughout history women have had a bias against them, for instance Rosalind Franklin had her work stolen and was used by Watson and Cricke to help discover the structure of DNA. The gender of the individual shouldn’t but often times does matter, it has been ingrained in our society that men are typically the breadwinners but this norm is slowly but surely changing. This is not to say if a brilliant coder or scientist and can’t communicate their ideas with coworkers then they might be in trouble.
3. What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
   • Practice, practice, practice! The command line is a whole new beast for me, I need to sit down and just start plugging and chugging. The more time spent coding will make the user more comfortable and soon it should feel like second nature. The readings and resources have been extremely helpful, I just need the time to let all this information sink in.

--Eyanosch (talk) 22:51, 20 September 2015 (PDT)

Kristin Zebrowski

1. Pull out a quote from the first two sections of “What is Code?” that you think directly relates to what you experienced in the individual portion of this assignment. Explain why this quote is particularly resonant for you.
   • "The hardest work in programming is getting around things that aren’t computable, in finding ways to break impossible tasks into small, possible components, and then creating the impression that the computer is doing something it actually isn’t, like having a human conversation."
   • This quote really resonates with me because it's easy to think that computers are doing something like magic, but from doing this assignment it's very clear exactly how many steps there are and how important it is that they are done in exactly the right order. It's definitely not a comfortable thing for me, having to break down each little thing I want to do into a string of separate commands, but computers can't read minds or anything even close. As Ford said, computers are dumb--they have to be told exactly what to do. This especially relates to what we're doing with translating DNA sequences via coding because putting even one command where it shouldn't be (out of order) means you will not accomplish the task you set out to accomplish.
2. What are your thoughts on gender issues in computer science? How different/similar do you think the situation is in biology? Feel free to speak from a particular lens (biology major, computer science major, LMU student, etc.).
   • It's very sad to me that there are still issues with gender inequality and gender harassment in the sciences. As a biology student I have only gotten positive support from male peers; in my classes, at least half of my fellow students are women, if not more. I feel like things are improving, albeit slowly--women are still far from getting the credibility they deserve, but I think we are taking a step in the right direction. This is clear to me by how many computer science and biology majors are female here at LMU. While in the professional field the sciences (I see this more in computer science than in biology, although gender disparity definitely exists in biology as well) are increasingly male dominated the higher up you go, I feel like science majors here get a lot of respect regardless of gender, and this makes me hopeful for the future.
3. What do you think you need in order to grow more comfortable, confident, and effective with the command line?
   • What I need is practice, and with that, I need time. A lot of learning the command line for me has been trial and error: it has taken a lot of getting used to for me to break down everything I want to do in sets of smaller commands and then to do that multiple times. So far I've found accomplishing something with the command line to be very rewarding, so I definitely want to become more comfortable doing it so it doesn't take me as long.

Kzebrows (talk) 23:26, 20 September 2015 (PDT)