Patrick Lam

Thoughts and travels of Patrick Lam

June: back to normal non-teaching term, writing paper after paper

1 Jul 2023

A quieter month all around. Short visit to Gold Coast for Australian nationals, and just working on papers.

Atene Skyline Track, June 17, 2023

28 Jun 2023

Atene Skyline day hike in Whanganui National Park. A bit faster than predicted time. Well-formed if somewhat steep track. Excellent undercast views. Also, Bushy Park near Whanganui.

Graduate Students

23 Jun 2023

I’m always looking for excellent, motivated students who are interested in program analysis.

Current Students

  • Alex LeBlanc (PhD, Winter 2024 -)
  • Laurian Angelescu (MASc, Fall 2019 -)

Past Students

  • Vinayak Sharma (MASc, Spring 2025)
  • Mohammad Mahdi Abdollahpour (MMath, Fall 2024)
  • Mohammad Robati Shirzad (MASc, Spring 2023)
  • Sruthi Venkatanarayanan (MMath, Fall 2022)
  • Ali Iman (MASc, Spring 2021)
  • Qian Liang (MASc, Spring 2021)
  • Jon Eyolfson (PhD 2018)
  • Stephen Li (MMath 2018)
  • Jun Zhao (MASc 2018)
  • Zeming Liu (MMath 2018)
  • Felix Fang (MASc 2014)
  • Wenzhu Man (MASc 2014)
  • Gaurav Jain (MASc 2013)
  • Divam Jain (co-supervised with Reid Holmes) (MMath 2013)
  • Jeff Zarnett (co-supervised with Mahesh Tripunitara) (MASc 2010)
  • Aakarsh Nair (MASc 2010)
  • Hang Chu (MASc 2010)

May: another big month

14 Jun 2023

Much travel, especially on the West Coast of North America. Really did finish teaching.

West Coast Adventures: Thanks friends! May 2023

12 Jun 2023

All over the West Coast of North America: Eastern Sierras, Seattle, Vancouver (and Squamish), and Nelson. Both work and life, too: gave a talk at UBC and UW, and did a bunch of skiing and hiking. Also bike commuting.

Book Review: We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada by Toula Drimonis

31 May 2023

Toula Drimonis writes about immigrants and allophones (non-English, non-French mother tongue) in modern Quebec society, talking about integration of immigrants and how broader society evolves in response. Her story, as the daughter of Greek immigrants, overlaps with mine in some ways.

Book review: Before the Dawn by Tōson Shimazaki

18 May 2023

A review of the Great Japanese Novel, which describes the life of village chief Aoyama Hanzō along a main highway through the opening of Japan to the world and the Meiji Restoration. Kind of the anti-It’s-a-Wonderful-World as he realizes that his efforts didn’t bear much fruit.

April: finally done with Winter term

8 May 2023

Whew! Finished teaching for Spring term. Western Newfoundland; around Montreal; and Brampton. Home repair.

Western Newfoundland, April 6-9, 2023

7 May 2023

Marble Mountain, arguably better than Tremblant; unarguably fewer lines. Gros Morne in the winter.

ChatGPT's Hot Takes on Programming Languages and Software Engineering

6 May 2023

Prompt engineering by Lucas Wojciechowski. Thanks!

User

Give me 10 hot takes on how machine learning will affect programming language / software engineering in the next 10 years

ChatGPT

Sure, here are 10 hot takes on how machine learning will affect programming languages and software engineering in the next 10 years:

  • Machine learning will become an integral part of software engineering, with developers routinely incorporating ML algorithms and models into their applications.
  • Programming languages will increasingly support machine learning by providing libraries and tools for ML development, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and scikit-learn.
  • Developers will need to have a strong understanding of statistics and data analysis in order to effectively incorporate machine learning into their applications.
  • The demand for data scientists and machine learning engineers will continue to grow, as more companies seek to incorporate machine learning into their products and services.
  • Natural language processing (NLP) and speech recognition will become more prevalent, leading to the development of new programming languages and tools that support these technologies.
  • Machine learning will enable the creation of more personalized and adaptive user interfaces, leading to a more seamless and intuitive user experience.
  • As machine learning becomes more widespread, developers will need to prioritize the ethical implications of their work, such as data privacy, bias, and accountability.
  • Machine learning will enable the creation of more intelligent and autonomous systems, leading to new challenges in software engineering, such as how to ensure the safety and reliability of these systems.
  • Developers will increasingly rely on machine learning to automate software testing and debugging, reducing the time and effort required to find and fix bugs.
  • Finally, machine learning will enable the creation of new types of software applications that were previously not possible, such as self-driving cars, personalized medicine, and smart home automation.

User

Can you make the takes more controversial?