CS110: ComputationalEngineering Lectures Instructor:

V. Kamakoti BSB 311

Timings Mon: 11 AM Tues: 10 AM Thur: 08 AM

Lab Instructors:

C. Chandrasekhar Hema Murthy Anurag Mittal Debdeep Mukhopadhyay Narayanaswamy

Timings 6.00 PM DCF, Dept. of CSE

Good old lessons in competitionfrom an age-old fable

The TortoiseAnd

The Hare

SRC: From Internet

Once upon a time a tortoise and ahare had an argument about whowas faster.

I’m the fastestrunner.

That’s not true.The fastest runner isme!

Ok, let’s havea race.

Fine!

They decided to settlethe argument with a race.They agreed on a routeand started off the race.

The hare shot ahead and ran briskly forsome time. Then seeing that he was farahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd situnder a tree for some time and relaxbefore continuing the race.

Poor guy! Even if Itake a nap, hecould not catch upwith me.

He sat under the tree and soon fellasleep.

The tortoise plodding on overtookhim and soon finished the race,emerging as the undisputedchamp.

The hare woke up and realized that he'dlost the race.

The moral of the story is that slow and steadywins the race.

This is the version of the story that we've allgrown up with.

The story continues …

The hare was disappointedat losing the race and hedid some soul-searching.He realized that he'd lostthe race only because hehad been overconfident,careless and lax. If he hadnot taken things forgranted, there's no way thetortoise could have beatenhim.

Why didI lose

the race?

Can we have another race?

Ok.

So he challenged thetortoise to another race.The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare went allout and ran without stoppingfrom start to finish. He wonby several miles.

The moral of the story?

Fast and consistent will always beat the slow andsteady. If you have two people in your class, one slow,methodical and reliable, and the other fast and stillreliable at what he does, the fast and reliable chap willconsistently get better than the slow, methodical chap.

It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to befast and reliable. You can be fast and reliable inCS110 if and only if you are attentive in the class andpractice well in the lab.

But the story doesn't end here …

The tortoise did some thinkingthis time, and realized that there'sno way he can beat the hare in arace the way it was currentlyformatted. How can

I can winthe hare?

RG!!!!!!!!!!

He thought for a while,and then challengedthe hare to anotherrace, but on a slightlydifferent route.The hare agreed.

Sure!

Can we have anotherrace? This time we’ll gothrough a different route.

They started off. In keeping with his self-madecommitment to be consistently fast, the hare tookoff and ran at top speed until he came to a broadriver. The finishing line was a couple ofkilometers on the other side of the river. Goal

The hare sat there wondering whatto do. In the meantime the tortoisetrundled along, got into the river,swam to the opposite bank,continued walking and finished therace.

Whatshould I

do?

The moral of the story?

In a class, it is not the case that one particular student alwaysexcels in ALL the courses. Everyone shall be a hero in thecourse that is closest to his/her heart. Make CS110 closest toyour heart.

You need not be a master of every thing to be successful.

The story still hasn't ended …

The hare and the tortoise, bythis time, had become prettygood friends and they did somethinking together. Both realizedthat the last race could havebeen run much better.

So they decided to do thelast race again, but to runas a team this time.

Hi, buddy. Howabout doing our lastrace again?

Great! I think wecould do it muchbetter, if we twohelp each other.

Hi, buddy. Howabout doing our lastrace again?

They started off, and this time thehare carried the tortoise till theriverbank.

There, the tortoise took over andswam across with the hare on hisback.

On the opposite bank, the hareagain carried the tortoise and theyreached the finishing linetogether. They both felt a greatersense of satisfaction than they'dfelt earlier.

The moral of the story?

It's good to be individually brilliant and to havestrong core competencies; but unless you're able towork in a team and harness each other's corecompetencies, you'll always perform below parbecause there will always be situations at whichyou'll do poorly and someone else does well.

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership,letting the person with the relevant core competencyfor a situation take leadership.So do GROUP study - Not copy

There are more lessons to be learnt from this story.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures.The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after hisfailure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he wasalready working as hard as he could.

In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate towork harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriateto change strategy and try something different. And sometimes itis appropriate to do both. We faculty are here to help you onthis.

The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. Whenwe stop competing against a rival and instead start competingagainst the situation, we perform far better.

To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoiseteaches us many things:

Never give up when faced with failureFast and consistent will always beat slow and

steady Work to your competenciesCompete against the situation, not against a

rival - No RG!!!!. Pooling resources and working as a team will

always beat individual performers - DoGROUP study - Do Not copy.

If you aim at reaching the SUN(Foundation Knowledge) your shadow(your CGPA) shall follow you. Let’s go

and build stronger teams! Work Hard togain knowledge and in turn reach

higher CGPAs!

Welcome to CS110 Improvements from Aug 2007 sem

Thanks to the valuable feedback from the previousbatch - The seating plan - No virtual professors, we need real

professors… RF-ID based attendance

3 students in a bench filled up on a first-come-first-serve basis. An RF-ID card shall be given to each student today You should bring it to every class including quizzes and

keep it in front of you on the desk, else you shall be markedabsent. Take it back with you at the end of the class.

If you lose the same, you have to pay Rs. 50/= to get a newcard

The card has to be handed over back to the TeachingAssistants during the end sem examination

Welcome Evaluation

10% - Quiz 1 15% - Quiz 2 50% - End sem 25% - 10 Lab assignments

Website www.cs.iitm.ernet.in - Click on courses, even

semester

Lab discipline Lab

Conducted at the Department Computing Facility,Department of Computer Science and Engineering,BSB - Second Floor.

One slot per week per person - 2 hours. Class divided into five groups - Mon, Tues, Wed,

Thurs and Fri Identify the group to which you belong to - look at

the course website. Report at 6.00 PM sharp at the lab

Lab discipline Lab

You have to develop 10 programs and those are listed in thehandout. Each carry a weightage of 2.5%

You have to program in the lab and explain the same to the TA You shall be given 10 weeks by which you should complete all

the 10 programming assignments. You can finish earlier than that time, but not later than 10

weeks. At the end of week N, all assignments upto N, shall be graded.

Punctuality Attendance

Your attendance in class shall be posted on thewebsite.

You are welcome to inform your parents to have alook into that, to give them the satisfaction that youare attending all the classes - 100% attendance.

I shall also be very glad to inform them on yourbehalf.

Feedback You have an opportunity to give a feedback

at the end of every class in the feedbackform that shall be provided during everyclass.

You can put down your questions in theform or any other comments.

The answers/Teacher’s response for thesame shall be posted on the website.

Class work Thanks to the feedback from the previous batch Feedback before Quiz 1

Type 1: Class is too difficult to follow, I don’t knowprogramming, The subject is very tough, I can’tunderstand the language you are talking ….

Type 2: Class is very elementary, I learnt the same in10th standard, I slept very well during the class ……

After Quiz 1 The elementary, simple, easy type of

comments disappeared. There is a difference between what you

have learnt and what you are going tolearn.

Attend the classes and find it for yourself.

Changes to Interest you more Three classes a week - on Tues and Thurs

Lecture for 25 Minutes Test your understanding - a handout with

questions - try answering the same in 10minutes

Solutions shall be immediately discussed - 5minutes

Creative problem solving - One Questionshall be posted per class - 10 Minutes

Changes Monday’s Class

Solution to the two creative problems posed. You can come and present the solutions. Opportunity to think and talk (Public

Speaking). Objective

To make the class more interactive andinteresting.

Conclusion The class has a strength of close to 300

students Help us to help you more by being on time

and cooperating with the Instructors andTAs to ensure smooth conducting of thecourse

Thank You