New books, heavy backpack
I just got two large books, which have made my already heavy backpack even heavier. I previously had a chemistry textbook, a distributed computing textbook, and two spiral notebooks for those subjects. Added to the mix are now the textbook for CS367, which cost me $130, and a specification for ANSI C, which is even larger, but cost me nothing.
I got the CS367 textbook because last semester, when being a TA for CS112, the students had a lot of questions that I could not answer because I did not have their textbook. I knew in general how to do things in python, but they would hunt up particular libraries or sample code and ask me questions about them. This didn’t always go so well, since their question would often be the first time I had ever seen that particular bit of code.
I also intend to attend CS367 on Thursdays, so I can keep up to speed with the class itself. I would attend on Tuesdays too, but I have a biology lab.
As for the ANSI C book, I got that from the professor who is officially my teacher for my independent study on compilers. I saw him a couple hours ago, walked in, and discussed my project. I told him some about the VM I had written / am writing, and some of my strategies for writing the actual compiler. He showed me this C specification, which is a step ahead of my old K&R 2nd edition C spec, and said I could keep it as long as I brought it back eventually. I took him up on that offer.
The only downside to all this is that my backpack is now heavier than god.