Notes on How to Make Compiler Design Relevant for Students
Regarding this article, I quite like the idea behind it. Indeed, sometimes colleges are criticized for adding courses that “won’t matter” in the labor market, or outside the academia. This criticism would only be true if we were to see colleges in utilitarian terms, which I believe would be a great mistake. While it is true a college degree does improve one’s marketability, the purpose of a college education is not just about preparing students for their fields of interest. In principle, a college education should develop the student’s articulation; that is, learning how to properly write, read, speak, and think. To this end, I appreciate the addition of courses relating to the humanities to our curriculums, and it is not surprising to see how topics regarding courses like this one have so much in common, and can be applied to, many other areas. A clever and well-developed college student will see how to mix many topics and concepts to create new and valuable ideas.
Having said the aforementioned, I will gladly add my ideas to this discussion, although much of what I say applies not to any particular course. My main suggestion is this: 1) let the student choose what he/she will do as a project; 2) and start these projects early on. The most meaningful projects are the ones that are our own; so, perhaps, in this course we could negotiate the specifications for the language we would love to compile. Too often too, we as students find ourselves doing redundant activities and homework in things that could be integrated into the project itself. By starting these projects early on, there is also enough time to develop them in time and proper dedication. A well-developed project serves the purpose of becoming a reference for future ventures.
These are just my
two cents.
:)
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