ksml

Thanks for checking it out!

1) The generated PTX is written to a file and then dynamically loaded into the fuzzer, which is a CUDA program. Specifically, the cuModuleLoad function can be called to load a ptx file, and then cuModuleGetFunction can be used kind of like dlsym to get pointers to functions that were loaded from the ptx.

2) We do plan to open source! Currently the code is definitely research grade and needs some more work.

Hi HN! I'm the intern that worked on this project, and I would be happy to answer any questions here!

Hi Divya! Thanks for reading!!

Thanks a lot for these helpful links! don't know much about Ada/SPARK but will spend some time going through these resources.

No, it wasn't by design, but we just didn't have time to talk about it. I talked about testing extremely briefly in one lecture, but I think we will spend more time on this next time we teach the class.

Designing this class was hard because there's just so much stuff out there to talk about, and not enough time... Did you see any topic we covered that you think we could do without and talk about testing instead?

Yes! It's now available here: https://github.com/reberhardt7/cs110l-spr-2020-starter-code

Huh, that's a bummer... Not sure if there was a recording issue or if I made a mistake editing the video. Sorry about that :(

> That's an interesting take, because I don't see Rust as being more abstracted in this way than C++ is. Obviously it's more abstracted than C, but by the time you get to "modern" C++ you're programming in a much higher-level language than C.

I agree, but C++ doesn't force you to write good, modern code, and so in lecture, we are better able to show examples of bad code that well-intentioned people might write and discuss the consequences. Also, you can't directly make syscalls in Rust without using "unsafe" or a library, and it's harder for students to see how programs interact with the kernel when that extra stuff is in the way.

I'm checking out Firecracker right now, and it looks like a really neat project! I'd love to talk more about virtualization in the class, especially since I feel that our current curriculum doesn't spend as much time preparing students for the modern cloud computing architectures they are bound to work with. Curious: can you think of any safety issues you've encountered in Rust or bizarre bugs that Rust's type system didn't save you from? Those often make great lecture examples, and while we always remind students that Rust is not a panacea, I don't think we had any good concrete examples.

I read that and wasn't sure if it counted, but I added "Show HN" because I uploaded all the course materials for people to "play with," and I'm mainly posting to get feedback from the community. Thanks for re-tagging it.

As I say in the blog post, I'm just a grad student, but I have worked in many different places in industry, and from my own experience as well as what I know from others, there is a big need for better awareness of these kinds of issues. We wanted to start doing something to fill that need. I'm certainly not the most qualified person to teach this class, but that's why I wrote the blog post and am soliciting feedback here. Anyways, better to have something than nothing, right?

That's true, but we only have 10 weeks in a quarter, and this class isn't many units so there isn't much time in every week. In the blog post, I explain our rationale for focusing on Rust even though I'm aware there are many other things we could talk about. Primarily, I think Rust encourages good programming practices, and, by working through practical assignments, students are able to develop better habits and have a more cohesive experience than they would if we just gave them an assorted list of technologies to know. That being said, I do wish we had spent more time giving students a better awareness of what's out there and talking about useful tools such as fuzzers.

Thanks for checking it out! I'd love to hear any feedback once you look through them

That's a great suggestion! I'll try to design some exercises for the next time we teach this.

I'm happy to email it to you! My email's at the bottom of the blog post. I'm also working on getting that starter code posted publicly.

EDIT: the code is now posted here: https://github.com/reberhardt7/cs110l-spr-2020-starter-code

Hi HN, I spent last spring working on a new class at Stanford that's focused on common pitfalls in systems programming and how to avoid them. You can check out all the lecture materials (including recorded lecture videos) and assignments available here: http://cs110l.stanford.edu/

I'm planning on teaching this class again in the winter or spring and am looking for any feedback to improve it. I would love to hear your comments and suggestions!

Do you have a source for this? I don't know much about immunology, but I know a little bit, and I don't think it's that thoughtful of a process. We have antibodies for all sorts of diseases, certainly not just for things like smallpox. This article suggests colds are endemic because they mutate too quickly for antibodies to be effective: https://www.technologynetworks.com/immunology/news/why-dont-... but we still make antibodies for them.

I think you're making a false dichotomy. You can avoid ostracising and deplatforming people without welcoming and broadcasting them.

Why would the density need to be distributed across classes? I think the idea is to have fewer people in the dorms, so that e.g. no one shares a room, to reduce potential for spread of disease.

I think you make it sound more ill intentioned than it is. Freshman year is crucial to forming new connections, finding organizations to join, and adapting to a new environment. It's not just about "dealing with remote learning"; it's also very much about meeting new people face-to-face and making friends they can lean on over Zoom for the semesters to come.

I had a very similar experience teaching a class of 23, including the Slack, which students found very helpful. I was also a student in a class of 60 and quality of discussion suffered, although I'm not sure it's 100% because of the online format (I think the instructors could have done a better job facilitating discussion)

I have no experience with graphic design programs, but I would guess that it has something to do with the fact that VSTs are self contained and have extremely simple interfaces. A VST takes some input (MIDI or audio) and produces some output (MIDI or audio). That's it. They're extremely modular, and you can chain them together in arbitrary ways so long as the inputs/outputs line up.

I imagine it's not so simple in the graphic design world, and without such a simple interface that everyone can agree on, it's much harder to create standardized plugins that everyone can use.

What's "be bold" supposed to mean?

I think a much simpler solution would be to just use one consistent XML parser. Throwing AI at things is not a good general solution. Black-box AI models may work in the common case, but they have edge cases with bizarre behaviors that are poorly understood. You'd end up with a result likely worse than this.

Just curious: why do you feel you trust your government more than "greedy" private companies?

In addition to the other replies to this comment, I'd add that the value of endowments has shrunk significantly due to collapses in economic markets.

I'm at Stanford, and at least within the CS department, the online classes are nothing like you describe. Some professors are using video recordings from previous quarters, while in many other cases, it _is_ some off-the-cuff Zoom meeting. As a lecturer, it's been difficult to transition.

I have my doubts that students will be back in the fall. The contagiousness of this virus is not going away, and students (particularly undergraduates, almost all of which live in dorms at Stanford) are far too densely connected for social distancing to be effective.

I think a really common danger here us people think they have more insight than they actually have. It's easy to take some data and draw conclusions from it without realizing the limitations of the data or the full scope of the complexity we're dealing with.

I'm sure it doesn't account for 1B a month, but paying employees is really expensive and airbnb has a lot of them

Yeah, I don't want unlimited freedom of speech. Some types of speech are harmful with little benefit, from my perspective. I don't see the justification for making it permissible to yell "fire" in a movie theater.

I don't think they need to screen all content in real time, but they certainly could use more people in reviewing flagged content and resolving disputes. This seems to be where all the major complaints -- it's just so hard to get a sane resolution when you are a corner case and the algorithm has decided against you.