Jeff Bezanson PhD

[stevengj]

One of the core Julia authors, @JeffBezanson, has become a problematic developer. He needs to graduate from MIT, ideally by January 2015. Dependencies:

• Thesis proposal.
• Thesis outline.
• Meeting with thesis committee.
• Rough draft sent to advisor(s).
• Schedule defense.
• Final draft sent to committee.
• Defense.
• Alcohol.

This is a priority issue, to ensure that arms are not broken and to guarantee long-term viability of the Julia project.

cc: @alanedelman, @jiahao, @StefanKarpinski, @ViralBShah, @samanamarasinghe, @gjs

Edit (VS): This issue is closed with the following thesis. I am putting it up here, since many people will be interested in finding it.
https://github.com/JeffBezanson/phdthesis/blob/master/main.pdf

[johnmyleswhite]

cc @fperez who also is interested in this outstanding issue

[jiahao]

Supporting information attached.

[JeffBezanson]

As a procedural issue, closing this might require work in a separate repository. The thesis should perhaps be included in Base to make it easier for others to contribute.

Also the ordering of the last task is misleading; it will actually recur frequently throughout the process.

[stevengj]

+1 for including it in Base, or at least in julia/doc/thesis. Or maybe theses to allow for future needs.

(Please go ahead and open up a thesis branch, Jeff.)

[jiahao]

Also the ordering of the last task is misleading; it will actually recur frequently throughout the process.

*has also already recurred

[stevengj]

I'm looking forward to being present at the Close issue ceremony.

[timholy]

I can't reproduce this issue locally; is it MIT-specific?

[jakebolewski]

One of the core Julia authors, @JeffBezanson, has become a problematic developer academic

[tknopp]

Is this the github version of a PHD thesis? Jeff has to open a PR with his proposal and the committee will decide whether to merge or not...

[ViralBShah]

+Inf for speedy resolution of this one!

[Carreau]

I had the same problem on IPython repo a few month ago, hopefully it was fixed 32 days ago.
I'm pretty sure it involved coffee, annoying paperwork and last minute change of plan because of jackhammers.

Good luck !

[stevengj]

Updated: Jeff met with his thesis committee and gave us a rough outline.

[timholy]

Glad to hear progress is being made!

But git log --date=short --all --since=22.days.ago --author="Jeff Bezanson" still makes one wonder how he has time for writing a thesis. Either that, or he's a superhero. Actually, scratch that: we all know he is a superhero, so never mind.

[jiahao]

The commits involving juliatypes.jl record our attempts to describe Julia's type system, which is directly relevant thesis work.

[johnmyleswhite]

The type system work seems to already be hitting some nerves: https://twitter.com/plt_hulk/status/535045242920378369

[StefanKarpinski]

I kind of doubt that's directly in response to Jeff's work, although I could be wrong. Hilarious tweet either way though.

[timholy]

@jiahao, my comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek---I kinda wondered about that very thing. I, for one, tend to have a lot of commits when I'm polishing something up for presentation.

[jiahao]

@timholy humor noted. :)

It would be remiss to not mention the lovely Magritte homage our local theory collaborator @jeanqasaur made and posted on twitter:

"The Treachery of Types" has a nice ring to it, no?

[tonyhffong]

That's quite funny.

[timholy]

Love it!

[stevengj]

Call for help: Jeff is looking for nice examples that show off multiple dispatch (and maybe staged functions), things which would be much harder/slower in languages without those features.

[tonyhffong]

er, show?

[timholy]

(and maybe staged functions)

subarray.jl and subarray2.jl should serve rather nicely. Design document is at http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/devdocs/subarrays/

[johnmyleswhite]

I think the Distributions package really makes multiple dispatch seem useful. Having things like rand(Gamma(1, 1), 5, 5) vs rand(Normal(0, 1), 3) is a huge gain in expressivity at no performance cost because of multiple dispatch.

[jakebolewski]

I don't see how that is the best example as it really is showing off
single-dispatch. How is it different than Gamma(1,1).rand(5,5) which you
would do in a more traditional OO language like Python or Java?

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 1:39 PM, John Myles White [email protected]
wrote:

I think the Distributions package really makes multiple dispatch seem
useful. Having things like rand(Gamma(1, 1), 5, 5) vs rand(Normal(0, 1),
3) is a huge gain in expressivity at no performance cost because of
multiple dispatch.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#8839 (comment).

[timholy]

@nicola-gigante, you can make a pull request 😄.

[jpfairbanks]

can we lobby for a best dissertation award?

http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/nominations.cfm

[mseri]

Congratulation!!!

[ScottPJones]

@jpfairbanks - good idea! It has to be submitted by his thesis advisor though... pester Alan Edelman, I think...

[jpfairbanks]

Yeah it needs nomination by the advisor and 5 letters of support. Based on this issue I think at least 5 people think he deserves it.

[ScottPJones]

Is it limited to 5 letters of support? Also, the real number of people who think he deserves it is at least a few orders of magnitude larger!

[ghost]

@JeffBezanson: Congratulations!

@alanedelman: I think @jpfairbanks has a good point, Jeff should get nominated for the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.

[hayd]

@JeffBezanson Well done and well deserved!

@ScottPJones "In addition, at least 3, and not more than 5, supporting letters should be included from experts in the field who can provide additional insights or evidence of the dissertation’s impact."

[ScottPJones]

Maybe Gerry will write him one (after he's added the s-expr mode!) 😀

[fabianlischka]

Hacker News front page :-) Congratulations, Jeff.

[JeffBezanson]

@nicola-gigante You're right, I will add hyperref.

Thank you to everybody again. All of your appreciation is the ultimate prize.

[owenversteeg]

@jiahao It's because they have EXIF rotation data which browsers don't care about. Most of the time. Chrome only cares about EXIF data if the picture is its own window. Right click and "Open in new tab" to see them the correct orientation.

You can use an EXIF metadata stripper to take that off and rotate them the "proper" way.

[ViralBShah]

+1 for the ACM dissertation award nomination.

[ViralBShah]

Nomination deadline is Oct 31, 2015.

http://awards.acm.org/doctoral_dissertation/nominations.cfm

I don't like it that ACM requires a copyright transfer to them and exclusive publication rights. It is still valuable and prestigious in any case.

[tsyber1an]

Congrats!

[ScottPJones]

Exclusive publication rights!?! I've got dibs on an autographed copy (or two... need one to sell on e-bay in 10-15 years, another to keep for myself 😀)... got to get that before it's locked up by the ACM!
(Of course, that probably means that it would be available on the ACM's digital library for members)

[alanedelman]

once dissertation is handed to me to sign I have every intention
of nominating the dissertation for various awards :-)

On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 8:49 AM, Scott P. Jones [email protected]
wrote:

Exclusive publication rights!?! I've got dibs on an autographed copy (or
two... need one to sell on e-bay in 10-15 years, another to keep for myself [image:
😀])... got to get that before it's locked up by the ACM!
(Of course, that probably means that it would be available on the ACM's
digital library for members)

—
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#8839 (comment).

[ScottPJones]

No comments from @JeffBezanson... I hope he's celebrating (more checking off his last box), and hasn't been locked in a room somewhere by GJS until he gets an s-expr mode working!

[dikshie]

Congratulations!

[mbaz]

Congratulations, @JeffBezanson!

[milktrader]

(belated) Congrats!

[JeffBezanson]

Update: just submitted the document. The submitted version is https://github.com/JeffBezanson/phdthesis/tree/876be73a5aab9b034fac3eb9ea9d8f96713f786f .

I'm sure it's deficient in many ways. Oh well. Hopefully there is nothing really bad in there.

[johnmyleswhite]

Nice. Congrats on truly finishing your PhD.

[Keno]

Congratulations, Jeff! Great accomplishment. I'm sure you're glad it's over.

[StefanKarpinski]

[timholy]

I've already found your thesis fills some holes in Julia's documentation, so it's clearly going to be quite useful. All documents come with flaws; the rest of us are impressed by the strengths! Congrats!

[milktrader]

And thank you for sharing it!

[ssfrr]

Woot! Congratulations on finishing the defense and thesis, and all the other work that they signify and represent. It's nice to have this milestone to recognize all the things you've accomplished. I hope you're proud!

[ViralBShah]

@JeffBezanson I hope you are planning to take a few days off to chill and celebrate, or perhaps you are planning to celebrate with type system overhaul or something. :-)

Nice that the new pdf has hyperref - for those wanting to browse. We should also get it up on the julia publications list.