Academic Advice - food in student share houses

Recently, the Cairns School of Information Technology realised that 5 of its students were in student share housing. Worse, it was the same share house and some of the students were taking honours or doing tutorial work. At first, this was not a problem but eventually, we discovered that while our students generally understand the need for defensive programming practices to ensure that programs would not malfunction due to incorrect input, they were incapable of recognising that incorrect food input could degrade their outputs e.g. trigger less elegant/efficient system architecture in high level designs, etc.

This photographic essay is a first attempt at reconnecting our (mal-nourished?) students with basic food stuffs in 2004. Somewhat more scientific information can be obtained from this New Scientist article of 2005.
Phillip Musumeci, SIT Academic Advisor, JCU.

Click on the small image for a larger image, and on the text under the image for a FULL size image. Additional links to helpful sites for students as well as selected student responses are appended.

01 coffee 02 fruit 03 the vegetable 04 vegetables - another view

Always a good starting point. High achievers purchase steam driven extraction tools... The yellow ones must be eaten regularly, according to tests by the James Cook. These should be inserted into most meals. If lifeforms are found inside, discard asap! Yummm perhaps choose according to colour ... plastic wrap can enhance hygiene.

05 beans 06 beans again 07 one more time 08 rice+pasta

Do not be put off by the container class... Container classes may hold mixed types and other stuff! Or think of this as a struct of input types... This can be a base class of many meals (look, no pizza). Automatic cookers are available.

09 fish (protein) 10 robust tomato 11 container class access tools 12 access tools close-up

These things contain good oils that improve code design (by humans). Nuts also recommended. A red thing in a pantry can be a tomato - these are good for you. These tools allow access to container classes - mechanically driven. (can you believe? Tree bark used to seal container classes)

13 food to impress 14 dehydration can be good 15 made in Australia

These food types can impress non-SIT peers. It is worthwhile to emphasise the fact that the tomato is imported from Italy. .. but not so for programmers (drink water and not just Coke). Those red things get tastier as they approach a base class state. I have limited experience with this input type (I hear pickled are very nice).

Student Comments and links to additional Information

RM reports that a "bad-taste" exception occurred when trying items 01 and 09 together. Well, RM, this was just a list of input types - we're not saying that you must combine fish with fruit, or wasabi with ice cream (although I will admit that wasabi ice cream is very good). Her other comments:
```
- perhaps need to develop library of known bugs and fixes e.g. if generating a
  bad-taste exception when compiling items 1 & 9, try blending item 9 first,
  you'll get a better consistency :) 
- if a bad-taste exception occurs again, or bad-presentation exception occurs,
  compile with items 13 - at least you'll impress non IT people
bon appetite!
```
RM later suggests we have incompatible types - I know we emphasise data types in our programming so this realisation is a good thing.
HP writes alleging that there are missing food types:
```
CaffinatedBeverageClass:
CarbinatedCaffinatedBeverageClass
```
and other objects inherited from the above. Well, HP, maybe we meant to ignore these along with FAT, SALT, etc.
Andrew Tanenbaum, a highly regard CS person who has written many good texts, has also written a good cook book - see How to Prepare Your Input (local copy for faster access, PDF). Other publications by Andrew Tanenbaum: "Structured Computer Organisation", 4th edition, Prentice-Hall, 1999, ISBN 0-13-020435-8. ; "Computer Networks", 3rd edition, Prentice-Hall, 1996, ISBN 0-13-394248-1; "Operating Systems Design and Implementation", Prentice-Hall, 1997, ISBN 0-13-630195-9 (with Albert Woodhull); "Modern Operating Systems", 2nd edition, Prentice-Hall, 2001. ISBN 0-13-031358-0 (3rd edition due shortly).


01 coffee	02 fruit	03 the vegetable	04 vegetables - another view
Always a good starting point. High achievers purchase steam driven extraction tools...	The yellow ones must be eaten regularly, according to tests by the James Cook.	These should be inserted into most meals. If lifeforms are found inside, discard asap!	Yummm perhaps choose according to colour ... plastic wrap can enhance hygiene.


05 beans	06 beans again	07 one more time	08 rice+pasta
Do not be put off by the container class...	Container classes may hold mixed types and other stuff!	Or think of this as a struct of input types...	This can be a base class of many meals (look, no pizza). Automatic cookers are available.


09 fish (protein)	10 robust tomato	11 container class access tools	12 access tools close-up
These things contain good oils that improve code design (by humans). Nuts also recommended.	A red thing in a pantry can be a tomato - these are good for you.	These tools allow access to container classes - mechanically driven.	(can you believe? Tree bark used to seal container classes)


13 food to impress	14 dehydration can be good	15 made in Australia
These food types can impress non-SIT peers. It is worthwhile to emphasise the fact that the tomato is imported from Italy.	.. but not so for programmers (drink water and not just Coke). Those red things get tastier as they approach a base class state.	I have limited experience with this input type (I hear pickled are very nice).