股掌之間

昨晚找到 cyy 在「科技來自於生活論壇」的 20 分鐘演講 "Research 2.0 - Harnessing Collective Intelligence"，發現原來 cyy 最後一次上課所講的內容是從這裡借來的 XD。前幾句開場白就充滿典型的 cyy 式幽默，超好笑 XD。

然後逛到上一屆的 Computer Organization & Assembly Languages 課程網頁，發現一篇神祕的 paper〈Kicking off a Course in Computer Organization and Assembly/Machine Language Programming〉（發表時間遠在 1987 年！），開場白是：

For several years I have been teaching a sophomore/junior level course entitled Computer Organization and Programming. The objectives of the course are to introduce machine organization and teach students to program in assembly language.（JK 注：所以課程目標和系上的完全一致。）Although there are many fine text books on assembly language programming and several good books on computer organization, I have not been able to find one that combines the two subjects so that they are meaningful to beginning students. It has been particularly difficult to start off the course in an interesting and challenging way without losing these students, who, for the most part, have been exposed only to introductory high level language programming. Recently I have tried an approach that shows signs of being successful. The heart of the approach is the use of a simple fictitious computer to illustrate the basic concepts. Although this approach is not completely new, I feel that the simplicity of the computer used along with the fact that the material is presented so early in the semester make it rather unique. In this paper I describe the machine and how it is used in the first class of the semester.

所以就知道 cyy 是從哪邊得到這個 brilliant approach 了 XD。cyy 第一年只用兩次課介紹這個部份，顯然覺得效果不錯或是值得擴大實驗範圍，所以今年的 TOY machine 佔了課程快一半的量。最令我感到渾身不自在的就是文章最後的結語：

After starting off the semester with this approach the past two times I have taught the course, unsolicited comments from students have been very positive. Several of them even went to the extreme of saying that for the first time they had gained some idea of "what really goes on inside a computer." Use of the simple fictitious machine described in this article also seems to lead very naturally into real machines and instruction sets. We have been emphasizing the Intel 8088-based, IBM-PC microcomputer and the IBM System/370 in the course. Although these machines are considerably more complex than the fictitious computer, students, after having been exposed to the latter, seem to "catch on" rapidly to how the the real machines work and are programmed.

Well，所以我屬於那種偏激的狂熱份子 XD。最詭異的就是，上段所講的效應都在我身上應驗了，感覺好像一隻小白鼠被 cyy 玩弄於股掌之間，做重複實驗而得到同樣的效果 XD。實驗應該相當成功，連極端的 case 都被 cyy 試出來了 XD。

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cyy 還在持續發酵中 XD。