AI or Language

#1

Hi all,

I am currently doing my undergraduate studies in Computer science. I hope to go into computer graphics industry in the near future. My interest is more on creating programs like Maya or XSI (meaning a fully intergrated environment for 3d). Currently, I need to make a choice between AI or Compiler (learning stuff like parsing and creating a language) course. I wonder which would be more useful. AI seems useful for crowd simulation but knowledge of parsing and stuff seems useful for scripting and file parsing. Hope someone in the forum can advice on which is a more valuable skill to have. Thanks.

Thuan Seah

#2

Software engineering plays a key role in developing those programs. Using AI is nice when you already have the basic framework for the program. I would suggest compilors for the reaons that you can learn to optimize your code.

#3

Thanks for the advice. I think I will go ahead with the course on programming language.

Thuan Seah

#4

Learning how to write a compiler is a fantastic kind of course to take… Even if 6you never use it again…

If you want to go into large-scale software like Maya, knowing this kind of thing is definately useful (there must be a large chunk of Maya that is a MEL interpreter, which is pretty close to a compiler, just that you don’t have to know how the bytecode has to be laid out for the CPU…

At uni we had a series of courses on this kind of thing, and, which I can’t really see myself using much of it again, it was a very valuable course, and definately one I felt glad having taken.

#5

Thanks for the advice. The only problem now is that that uni course that is offered doesnt seem to cover everything about compiler(since the course title is Principal of Programmng language instead of compiler technology). It roughly covers the following:

Lambda Calculus
Functional Programming in Haskell (wonder how is this useful?)
Fixpoint Theory of recursive function definitions
Syntax, Parsing and translation (teaches Flex and Bison)
Semantics of Programming Languages

What seems lacking(after browsing through what other uni teaches for compiler related stuff) is optimization of the code. Perhaps others who have taken a similar course in compiler technology might be able to tell what’s missing. Would this be sufficient for working on something like MEL script? Really hope someone can advice on this. Thanks.

Thuan Seah

#6

Lambda Calculus - ???
Functional Programming in Haskell (wonder how is this useful?) - its useful
Fixpoint Theory of recursive function definitions - algorithms, very useful
Syntax, Parsing and translation (teaches Flex and Bison) - VERY useful
Semantics of Programming Languages - comes in handy if you want to be a software developer

In short, I wish I had time to take it. What you will learn in this class doesn’t early on appear to be related to graphics. Only when you really start to do some heavy coding will you realize how useful this knowledge is.

I say: Go for it! :thumbsup:

#7

Thanks. That’s very reassurring. I have enrolled for the course and can’t wait for the semester to start!

Cheers,
Thuan Seah

#8

Any idea how this differs from standard calculus?

Functional Programming in Haskell (wonder how is this useful?) - its useful
Personally, I’m not convinced… We did two courses in Haskell at uni, and, as interesting as it was, I can’t think of a time when I’ve had to refer back to it (except when explaining to someone the difference between functional and procedural languages…)

Fixpoint Theory of recursive function definitions - algorithms, very useful
Never heard of the Fixpoint Theory, but any algorithms stuff is good…

Syntax, Parsing and translation (teaches Flex and Bison) - VERY useful
Definaltely a very good thing, whether you want to work with compilers or not. I’ve not personally used Flex or Bison, as we did it all straight in C, but if they give a better understanding of how it all works (rather than doing the work for you automagically), then they can’t be bad…

#9

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