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Other

Waiting

For the past 5.5 years I’ve been in college.  Yes, that long.  After 4.5 years, I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Central Michigan University.  From that point I thought that it would be prudent to go to grad school.  This was a big mistake.  As it turns out, I never really had much interest in continuing my education formally after my undergrad.  So, 3 weeks ago I resolved to get a big person job (scary!).

As it would happen, a Fortune 500 company (actually, it’s in the top 15) was looking for 50 or so candidates for it’s new center in the Lansing area.   They had recruiters on campus, and as soon as I told them I was looking for work, was a grad student, and had loads of external experience, they seemed interested.

I was invited down to Lansing for a “meet and greet” event at their new center.  Things went well, and one of the recruiters made a point to introduce me the head of center to me.  I consider this a good thing.  After that, I was invited down a week later for a round of interviews with the company.  The interviews went extremely well, and I feel like I’ll get a call back (keeping the fingers crossed!).

They were looking to fill 50 positions, and they were interviewing 70 people.  Assuming that they realistically can fill 20 positions, those are still very good odds for getting a job.  They said it could take up to 2 weeks to get a call back (for good or bad).  Now I’m waiting.  Impatiently at that.

Waiting to find out what the rest of your life will bring is nerve-wracking.  I have no more fingernails left and I have to admit I’m kind of boring to be around.  I can’t get it out of my mind.  Working for this company would be great: interesting projects, smart co-workers, new technologies.  Oh yeah, and money + benefits.  I haven’t had health insurance in 5 years.  Going to the doctor when I get sick would be swell.  A new car might be nice too if I have to commute (VW Golf TDI!).

But for now, I wait.

Categories
Other Programming

Playing with Go: Channels and Go-Routines

Edit:  I’m implementing a new version of this that isn’t limited by overflow.  I’m doing this by adding the numbers on a per digit basis, carefully managing the overflow, and storing the numbers as strings.  Theoretically, we should be able to calculate LARGE Fibonacci numbers like this.

When I heard about Google’s new programming language Go last week, I immediately jumped on it.  I had used Limbo before for a distributed programming course, so I thought that I might write some code to help other people get their feet wet.

My example is a simple Fibonacci number calculator.  It works by creating a new Go-routine every time it needs to calculate the next number.  There are a couple different approaches to doing this:  Create the entire pipeline first (faster calculation, slower set up), Create the pipeline as we go (not a bad way to go, smaller overhead), or create a ring and have the calculation take place within the ring.  Communication between the Go-routines and the main thread are handled via channels.

I heavily documented the code so that beginners might be able to make sense of what’s going on.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment!

Download the code here.

/*
* Name:   fibonacci.go
* Date:   November 16, 2009
* Author: Jack Slingerland (jack.slingerland@gmail.com)
*
* Description:  This program is a Fibonacci number calculator.
*   It may be invoked as follows:  “./8.out [goal]”, where [goal]
*   is the Fibonacci number that you want to computer.  Currently
*   the program is limited to the 46th Fibonacci number due to
*   overflow, however a new implementation is in the works that
*   won’t have that limitation.  The real purpose of this program
*   is to show how Go-routines work, and how communication and
*   sychronization between them is handled using channels.
*/

package main

import (
“os”;
“fmt”;
“strconv”;
)

/*
*  This ADT holds all the information needed to calculate the next
*  Fibonacci number in the sequence.  Current is the current index
*  in the series (ex, 5 = We’re on the 5th number in the sequence).
*  Goal is of course, the number in the sequence that we’d like to
*  achieve.
*/
type fibonacci struct {
a int;
b int;
current int;
goal int;
}

func main() {
//Check the command line arguments for sanity.
goal, err := checkArgs();
if(err != “”) {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stdout, “Error: %s”, err);
os.Exit(1);
}

//Special case:  If the goal is 2 or less, the Fibonacci number is always
//1.  This isn’t really worth creating channels + go routines for.
if(goal <= 2) {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stdout, “Fibnonacci Value %d is: %d\n”, goal, 1);
} else {
//Construct two channels, the input channel acts as our communication
//between the Go routines.  As you can see, it can be typed as an
//ADT(struct), which makes passing data REALLY easy between go routines.
//The final channel is for passing back the goal Fibonacci number to
//the main thread.
input := make(chan fibonacci);
final := make(chan int);

//Create a new fibonacci object and set it’s values.
var x fibonacci;
x.a = 1;
x.b = 1;
x.current = 2;
x.goal = goal;

//Create a new Go routine with the addNumber function.  We pass it the
//two channels that were declared earlier.  This is similiar to “spawn”
//in Limbo.
go addNumber(input, final);

//The first addNumber() Go routine will block until it gets input from
//the input channel.  So, we pass it our fibonacci object.
input <- x;

//Now, we block and wait for the Go routines (addNumber()) to finish up
//and send us back the final value.
number := <- final;

//Print the value out and we’re done!
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stdout, “Fibnonacci Value %d is: %d\n”, x.goal, number);
}
}

/*
* The addNumber() function takes two channels as parameters.  One is a
* channel of fibonacci, which holds information about which number to
* calculate and when to stop, and then a channel of type int, which will
* be used to send the final goal number back to the main thread.
*/
func addNumber(input chan fibonacci, final chan int) () {
//Block here and wait for input from the previous thread
//or the main thread, depending on the situation.
x := <- input;

//Here we check to see if we have met our goal, if we
//have, we return the goal value back to the main thread
//via the final channel.  Otherwise, we calculate the
//next number in the sequence.
if(x.current < x.goal) {
fib := x.a + x.b;

//This is fun because you can assign multiple values at once.
//x.a <- x.b and x.b <- fib.  🙂
x.a, x.b  = x.b, fib;
x.current = x.current + 1;

//Make a new channel of type fibonacci so that we can communicate
//with the new Go routine that we are about to create.
output := make(chan fibonacci);

//Pass the new Go routine the newly created channel, as well as the
//final channel that was passed in from the caller.
go addNumber(output, final);

//Send the fibonacci object out on the channel.
output <- x;
} else {
//Send the goal value out on the channel back to main.
final <- x.b;
}
//Go routine dies now.
}

/*
* The checkArgs() function is a great example of returning multiple
* values.  We return an integer and a string to the caller, so handling
* errors is fairly straight forward.
*/
func checkArgs() (int, string) {
//Fetch the command line arguments.
args := os.Args;

//Check the length of the arugments, return failure if that are too
//long or too short.
if((len(args) < 2) || (len(args) >= 3)) {
return -1, “Invalid number of arguments.\n”;
}

//Convert the goal argument to an integer.
goal, err := strconv.Atoi(args[1]);

//Make sure the conversion went correctly, otherwise return failure.
if(err != nil) {
return -1, “Invalid argument.  Argument must be an integer.\n”;
}

//Since this implementation is limited, make sure the user can’t go
//beyond the program’s limits.
if(goal > 46) {
return -1, “This program only calculates up to the 46th Fibonacci number.\n”;
}

//Check the lower bound as well.
if(goal < 1) {
return -1, “Invalid range.  Number must be >= 1.\n”;
}

//On success, return the goal value and an empty string indicating
//that everything is good.
return goal, “”;
}

Categories
Other

$25 Amazon Gift Certificate

ShoulIGetTheBook.com is giving away a $25 gift certificate just for entering a review on their site.   The odds of winning are good now (only 5 or six people have registered), so i suggest checking it out here.