lonely !

al salamo 3alikom wa ra7mato Allah,

lonely, a bad/good feeling, good if it's forgotten and worked in something useful, and bad when it start controlling my mind.

instead of talking about my personal feelings, I'll talk about something that i think it's useful, the topics may not be organized enough, but i wish it .... works

few weeks ago, graduation project has taken a part of our time, thinking of graduation project, determining the department, are they tightly related ? does the department affect the postgraduation life ?

alot of opinions, and long time of conversation, it started by thinking of some new ideas (scientific projects) as it was supposed that all of us gonna choose scientific computing,,, we thought of a flight simulator, a human-mind action predictor, robot simulation, sound/air environment analysis, etc...
actually all topics are going to science, it has something to do with science, we thought of it cuz we need to fit the project to the department!
is that logical ?, may be, later we (me and kamal) met Dr. Abdullah Gamal, he is a graduate of S.C. dept., he didn't find what he expected, scientific department outside FCIS (maybe outside Egypt) has another view!
That speech conclusion, is that every computer scientist should know about networks, image processing, compilers, etcc... .... yup, Computer Science subjects :D
he said that only 'Computational Geometry' was the interesting subject, and may help the computer scientist
If you wanna be an Assitant, and your grades of the previous three years is acceptable, then go to scientific, ,,, if you wanna study the "Computer Science" for knowledge and has more to do with work than scientific, then go to C.S.
Scientific has nothing to do with work in egypt, except in a little number of companies such as Schlumberger (oil and petroleum)
Then we scheduled a meeting with Ahmad Safwat, Mahmoud Hossam, Abdullah and Karim, then joined us Mohammed Samy and Zidan
The conclusion is that no department is bad, u should define your vision, define your goal, what you wanna be after being graduated, will you work hard to find a job in Schlumberger ? do u like science such as Numerical Analysis ? or do u prefer to study Networking, Pattern Recognition,,, and compilers ?
or you prefer to study technologies and tools to be ready for real life work, as well as know what's Database and Datamining (IS) ?
it depends on your vision, you should work from now to reach your goal, wanna be a technical Manager ? an Architect ? Sales man ? Nurd! ? Professor ?
Scientific is not full of science as we expect, but it still has something new. Computer Science is essential for every scientist, and also could be studied alone, if you could find time. IS is for Data management lovers.
oops i forgot C.Sys. although i like, it seems that we didn't talk alot about it, or maybe didn't talk at all!
it's really a nice dept. The study of embedded systems, and continue on the line of Computer Architecure and Logic Design, doing software for different hardware types.
After graduation of any department, you will find work in Egypt, but if you wanna work in a specific field, then you have to take care, it would be hard to find a job, but still you can find a job.
other ideas grew in that meeting and in another little meeting before, that was a 'Wii', Grid Computing, virtual chemical lab, etc...
I wish that was a clear topic, and not a maze !

salaaam

End of 3rd Year (3) - Final

al salamo 3alikom,

now comes the 2nd term, that term is much more better than the first one in my opinion, specially cuz subjects el 7efz ba2alha mafhoom tany :D
and understanding of real life matters such as Operating System and Computer Architecture has become clear.

Second Term

AI (lab):
i think i've talked before about that subject, kalam fe montaha el raw3a :D Here

i didn't talk about the lab, lab is prolog again, msh fare2 kteer 3an el first term

Computer Architecture (lab and 4 projects):

gr8 subject, and greatest Dr. (Dr. Sa3eed 3'oneimy), i've talked before barDo about the purpose of that subject Here

lab msh fare2 3an el lecture, fe 7aga zyada esmaha "Module" actually i didn't attend any of the module labs :$ , law 7ad men el zomala2 ye2dar yekallemna about it yb2a tmama :D

Database (lab and project):

not a bad subject :D, good Dr. (Dr. Tayseer) awelha 7efz, then feeh sho3'l kwayes such us drawing an EER, Normalization, Relational Algebra, Indexing and Trees problems

it's concerned with DB design, making a perfect DB design logically and physically

lab is SQL Server, 3o2bal ma yb2a 2005 :D, project is make a good DB with a simple C# interface, the data validation and any check or constraints is done through SQL Server not C# (procedures, functions, rules and defaults)

Graphics (lab and 2 projects):

it's a good subject, but not perfect :D, game programming generally has a gr8 market, but that subject ma wasaletsh lel mostawa da :D

not a good Dr. ! wa bel taly ma kansh 7ad bye7dar, wa bel taly kan mota7'ayel en elly mya3melsh elly howa 3ayzo bel zabtttt fel project yb2a ma bye7darloosh (7atta law kan bye7darlo), kan beyza3a2 3alashan el interface msh user friendly! (msh hammo el entire effort) {da fel lab project 2, it was making a pckage to draw premitive objects such as rectangle and cirle, and making some transformations and clipping}

lab project 1 e7na 3amalna game, flight, btedrabha rocket, tanfager :D
haytham did the flight motion, kamal and moussa rocket motion (fe hena interpolation-numerical), mustafa did the radar and startup menu, and i did the explosion effect

Operating System (lab and 2 projects):

gr8 subject, understand what is the purpose of the OS, and how it works along with computer processor and memory, good Dr. bas not good Exam :D, el exam byet3ad kol sana, we feeh questions 3ageeba :D

2 projects wad7a wa saree7a we standart for all groups

working on Linux fel lab, lazeez :D

System Analysis (lab and project):

good subject, and respectfull Dr., although el subject 7efz, bas el exam ma kansh 7efz 7'ales, the subject is concerned with system development phases (shabah software engineering, but more understood), we fel nos kda hy7sal intersection between DB and System Analysis :D

lab is making use case diagram, activity, sequence, class and state diagrams for a specific system

that's the second term :)

and here ends 3rd Year - FCIS

it's now time waiting exams results ans looking for a training in a company

yalla, salaaaam

End of 3rd Year (2)

sorry for being late, lets continue...

First term

• Numerical Analysis (lab and lecture project)

A nice subject, and more than nice :D, but not a suitable Dr. :s , subject is full of approximations :D , it helps when developing something that requires mathematics such as numerical integration, spline and interpolation (find curve given points), representation of floating point in computer, error, etc...

Full of rules, if you could start studying from the beginning alone, it will be useful in Scientific department too ;)
project was to make an application that draws sin/cos function, then choose some points, and let it draw a spline using those points (compare the calculated with the original)

• Prolog (lab and project)

New way of programming :D , backtracking in minimum time, and dealing with laaaarge numbers too

an AI programming language, that has the capability of getting input given some output :D (backtracking and find possible inputs that generate that output), and finding all possible solutions.

final exam is too long, it's all implementing algorithms and though you should memorize it to finish quickly, our exam had one intelligent question,,, like ACM ones, but actually i didn't solve, cuz i had no time to understand it :(

project was to make any visual prolog application :D , XO game,,, or whatever

we implemented dijkstra algorithm graphically

• Software Engineering (lab and project)

Here come the only 7efz subject :D, good Dr. but subject not, in 2nd term comes System Analysis and DB that are much better and easily understood :D

it's concerned with different phases of developing a sytem, and different approaches, and also project management.

lab is Oracle DB ;) and Oracle Form builder (zay el access feeh DB and forms, bas da Oracle ;))

project was to make a system, feeh DB we forms and reports (nafs fekret el access barDo)

we implemented a Stock Brokerage application, i think that was the best project in the first term beside our trials in serial communication using assembly

that's enough now, be back soon isA to talk about 2nd term...

End of 3rd Year

al salamo 3alikom wa ra7mato Allah,

yesterday was the last exams day in the 3rd Grade of FCIS, after about 2 months full of projects and exams,,,, it's now VACATION <:o) How 3rd year looks like (generally): A year containing interesting courses much more than any other year, courses full of new information, and things that makes you understant how computer hardware and software works ... tell you make your own assembler ;) Along with other subjects, that are useful for building projects (steps for developing a big project), such as System Analysis (I think that's the only one :D ) Lets talk in details ? OK

First Term:

Algorithms: (lab and project)
Subject name appears attractive :D , the syllabus started with how to calculate the algorithm complexity and methods for doing so, then sorting algorithms, divide and conquer, graph (Breadth, Depth, Prim, Kruskal, Dijkstra), dynamic programming (knapsack and LCS)
el Dr. (galna 2 drs. , abl we b3d el midterm, b3d el midterm kan el graph and dynamic algorithms) ta2reeban ma byeshra7sh 7aga :D , the "Introduction to algorithms" book exercices are very good to solve questions concerning complexities.
I was not interested in that subject cuz i didn't learn smg new, and i was supposed to be excellent in the exam as i'm an ACMer :S :D
Project was to represent any of the graph algorithms visually (like java applets for algorithms)

Assembly: (lab and project)
Useless subject :D , just get general idea about intel assembly and use the "debug" command in DOS, and the 8086 Emulator tool.
They will say expressions such as "Registers" and "Flags" you won't understand how they work, or where are they till you study Computer Architecture in the second term ;) you will only know that ZF (zero flag) is zero when an operation on the AX register (or some register) results zero..
Project was either a virus (7aga btel3ab fel interrupts,,, u'll know it barDo), text editor (using Assembly 7'allo balko :D ), piano (u may IN and OUT through computer ports using assembly easily :D cuz it's low level), encryption/decryption
e7na fakarna na3mel serial port communication between two PCs, a3adna feeh 4 days, na2al 1 character we battal :D, 3'yarna el project :D

Automata:
"Computer theory", 7aga kda high level :D , making "automaton" and representing states of a machine :D, looks like logic, ana ma kontesh fahem eh lazmetha till nos el term kda :D
subject 7elwa (Y), Dr. Elham kwayesa , fe nas ma bet7ebhash 3shan results el final exam msh maDmoona :D, bas e7l gebt ta2deer kwayes feeha
subject 7elwa, 7ebbooha :D

to be continued...

Natural Stupidity

The name that our AI course should be called!

A name like one above is suitable when you feel no difference between the study of humanities and AI!… is suitable when you read the exam paper to find such questions:Explain briefly:a)… b)… c)…Explaina) … b)… c)…Explain “bla bla bla” in terms of:a)… b)… c)… (Note: b is “write algorithm for…”)

Such a name is suitable when the same printing mistakes of the 2005 exam, is again there in 2006!

When the prof. ask you to answer only 5 questions of 6, if you did answer the 6 questions… all will be canceled!!A course put since 10-20 years ago! , studying the history of AI and Expert Systems of yeeears ago!All the term searching on the net for topics concerning AI, we find different way of learning, modern articles, maybe we don’t find those in our course! … then copying-pasting-printing then throw on the bench!

We study, definitions , types, advantages, bla bla bla… and the AI lab is a case containing a number of predicates that recurse and get a solution, yaa far7ety, wel nas barra bta3mel robots and neural networks on microchips, we e7na hena ben7ell case bta3et wa7ed msh 3aref yet3’adda in which restaurant!

El dr. kol hammo fel 7yaaaah, ennak tektebbbbb

A course that’s taught wrongly, about 10% practical … and the rest is nazary,,, we ya reito nazary ndeef zay el architecture walla el OS walla 7atta el DB wel System Analysis

Recommendations:

• Help us to think practically, increase our practical capabilities through more lab hours and benefit full cases that from real life researches
  
• Update the syllabus and the book, look for 2006 publishes
  
• The exam should be a number of problems, that’s not about filling databases with facts!!,, but about how to solve a problem using few states.
  
• And more…
  

The problem will persist till we at least talk and say “NO” , we are taught a number of interesting subjects wrongly, although we are in a practical faculty!

Time will come soon to say “That’s Enough” isA isA