Classes resumed this week; I'm finally done with the core classes required for everyone. My favorite core class was (surprisingly for a recovering humanities major/non-math fan like me) Algorithms. I also enjoyed Programming Languages. Operating Systems was worth learning but not quite my cup of tea, as it turns out. I suppose I just like the nice, clean theoretical stuff more than the mess of implementation. (Maybe because what I do at work has so much real-world mess and compromise to it.)

Having just gotten through a really big chunk of Drupal development, I think I've come to terms with its pros and cons.

Best: The CSS options give you total control over the display of your content. A single piece of content is usually surrounded by multiple CSS classes or ids with different levels of specificity, separated by spaces. Example: <div class="view view-alert view-id-alert view-display-id-block_2 view-dom-id-1"> This is an example of our simple alerts system which displays notices at the top of the page in a nice pink box.

This is my last week of freedom before fall classes begin again. I'll be taking Fundamental Algorithms and Operating Systems. These classes, in addition to Programming Languages which I took in the spring, are the prerequisites for most everything else, so I should be able to start picking electives soon. Natural Language Processing is being offered in the spring and I will definitely sign up for that, as a person with a strong language background and an interest in search.

Update: New theme is in place, not fully baked but test-drivable.

I converted this site into Drupal over my winter break, and over the summer break, I intend to replace this off-the-shelf theme with a custom one. I've already sketched it out, and got a nice educational discount on a copy of Fireworks for home. A new theme probably will not improve my posting frequency, but it will be nicer to look at!