Lindsey KuperMar 21

Paulette mentions in her lovely, heartfelt post (https://types.pl/@koronkebitch/116263964501595558) that she's in PL for the people. The same is true for me.

I'm teaching undergrad PL again starting in about a week, and I'm thinking that this time around, I want to use lecture time to feature PL people that I love. Maybe once a week, I could show someone's photo, say a bit about how I know them, and then read out loud to the class something written either by or about them that conveys a sense of who they are.

paulette d. koronkevich (@[email protected])

since blogs are trendy https://koronkevi.ch/posts/humanity.html

types.pl
Show threadPrabhakar RagdeMar 21
@lindsey You can probably pull this off much better than me, but... I taught a course on functional data structures (enriched version of core requirement) twice. The first time, I showed photos and told anecdotes, because I'd been an algorithms & complexity researcher for so long. I got slammed in the evaluations for "name-dropping". I took all that out the second time and it went much better (because the material really is marvellous).
Show threadchris martensMar 22
@plragde @lindsey ughhh that breaks my heart. the idea that the only reason we might want to share people's names and stories is for personal clout chasing 😭
Show threadLindsey KuperMar 23
@chrisamaphone @plragde Well, I mean, I do know someone who seems incapable of getting through a meeting without at some point dropping the name of some famous person he's worked with in his long career, and I have to say it gets pretty old after a while. So maybe whoever saw fit to complain on Prabhakar's evals had been subjected to a little too much of that kind of thing in other contexts and developed an allergic reaction to it.
Show threadPrabhakar Ragde
@lindsey @chrisamaphone I think there are two significant differences between Lindsey's situation and mine. One is that she would be talking about the present, whereas I was talking about the past. The other is that I am more than a generation older, and have to work that much harder to develop any sort of rapport.
Mar 23 at 6:22amWeb
Show threadPrabhakar RagdeMar 23
@lindsey @chrisamaphone I have pulled off historical anecdotes in other courses, but with stronger personalities and spicier stories (Turing, Russell, Gentzen, etc.). The one personal anecdote, about my seeing Church speak when I was a grad student, puts me in their situation, and so is more relatable.