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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Yogi Baba's Assembly class

After last leave in December I resumed work from January. Now work is so much that I could not even think of taking single leave till Feb. end.
I have joined Yogeshwar (Yogi) Sir's class to learn assembly language. This class is really a different experience. Most of the students are older than the teacher :).
Earlier I thought he will start the class with typical "Hello World" program, but to my surprise he started with how computer works :). Many things were new to me. When he taught us difference between C and Pascal calling convention I really felt ashamed for not knowing this difference after working for ~4 yrs (I knew it theoretically but that was almost 'mugging up').
It is a fun to attend Yogi's class. Most interesting thing is anybody can ask question at any moment of time. The question may not be assembly related (but if Yogi knows it, you will get answer!). The discussions sometimes completely leave the course work and end up in discussing things like how fork() call works :D. To add somehow the lighting arrangement in teaching room is such that we have to use one tube-light and one bulb - which gives the environment feel of some 'geeky-magic' is being taught here.
Initially timing was decided as Sat 8am to 10am and Sun 8am to 11am. till date class never finished before 1pm and most the the times it went up to 1.30pm :). Other interesting things I learned the were binary operations, segmentation and paging, hardware components in computer and their functions...
Next time if you want to register for any class do ask teacher, what is s/he going to teach - syntax or concepts :D. Assembly language's syntax is also interesting. Writing code is assembly is like giving instructions to 2 yr old. You need to specify most of the things - otherwise results can be unexpected :) (mostly error :)).
The class is not finished yet, few more things that will be covered are static and dynamic linking and then implementation of data structures using assembly language.
I am really tired now. Have not got single day for rest from 2nd Jan 10 and will not get it till end of Feb. Now I am stuck in between workload, assembly homework :D and study I started on my own "Windows operating system".
Saddest thing is I have not done any trek for past 3 months :(.
I hope Yogeshwar will start class for some new subject after few months and I will again experience such busy schedule. I like learning when it is fun!

4 comments:

Nikhil Kardale said...

You've shared the experience nicely! I think that when the teacher and the student both are so enthusiastic.. it's got to be a good feeling :)

I've not been able to attend his classes yet.. but plan to learn something from him surely.. it would be great to take in some of his knowledge.. lets see how it goes!

Ashish Sarode said...

Thanks for comment Nikhil.
Do surely attend his class. If you do not get time to attend class for months, you can attend first three. He has same policy for first 3 lectures as that of Dr. Gokhale Sir.

I also wish to attend your's, Yogesh's and Sarjerao's lecture in college. I hope I will get the permission and time soon.

Unknown said...

Well written Dude. I appreciate your hunger of knowledge :) Its good to have knowledge cravings :-) Nicely written blog. Keep it up. There is one more thing that I would like to add, No one knows everything in this world. So there is no need to feel ashamed of not knowing something which is very trivial. after all it all differs from technology to technology. Remembering syntax of calling methods in every language is according to me not necessary. Well its good to know but not necessary. thats not the end of the world. Again its my way of thinking which can be wrong :-)

Ashish Sarode said...

I agree with you Girish. Remembering the syntax is really one of the least important thing for a true developer.