May Projects

My past lamentations over boredom are about to be resolved... with a vengeance. This month I have not one, but two, major projects to complete for my spring quarter classes. They're pretty cool, though, so I thought I'd give a brief overview.

CS315a - Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming

For this class, I'll be working with two others to code and parallelize an Item Response Theory based program. Props go out to Andy for introducing me to the idea, and for pointing me towards several white papers to get us started.

CS343 - Advanced Topics in Compilers

For this class, I'll be working with one partner to create a test-case generator. I'm pretty excited about this project, as it allows me to get my hands dirty inside a compiler and could prove to be pretty useful (hopefully). The idea is pretty simple. Let's say you have the following block of code:

foo(int a, int b) {

if( a < 10 )

//do something

} else {

if( b != 0)

//meant to do something, but instead causes a runtime crash

else

//do something

}

}

My program would create three input test cases: foo(1,0); foo(11,1); foo(11,0); These can then be run by the user, knowing that they likely get X% path coverage on their code. It should be pretty sweet.