Preface

Computer Science is not a science for computer, but the science for everything via computer.

Computer science solve real-word problems by designing algorithms. In the other hand, computer learners can also gain a much deeper insight directly from those algorithms when facing real-word problems.

So, this article is about those insights from algorithms, concepts and everything related with Computer Science.

Context Switch in CPU and in life

Conclusion:

  1. Focus on One task for a long time and finish it.
  2. Less Switch, Fast Switch

When you run multiple applications simultaneously on a computer, the CPU actually split a second into multiple time slices, and executing only one application’s code in a time slice. When CPU finishes this time slice, if it decides to execute another application’s code in the next time splice, CPU will have to save current application’s state in the memory and load next application’s state into CPU. This is called context switch (A much detailed explanation at here).

The context switch consumes time and can affect the total CPU efficiency: if the time to switch context equals the time to execute application’s code, the CPU production ratio is about 50%.

When people are doing several things at the same time, they usually apply the same strategy: doing one thing at one time slot. If they decide to do other task next time slot. They have to “reloading” some context about the other task into their memory.

An analogy between CPU and human brain

– CPU Human brain
Context registers and program pointer What have done ? What’s the problem? …
Where to store the context RAM Brain or a note

This reloading can cost a lot of time due to:

  1. They forget what they have done last time, and need a long time to remember that.
  2. They stopped the task at a point where the situation is so complex (a big context).

To achieve a higher efficiency, try to decrease your context switch time by:

Goal How-To
Decrease the number of times of context switch Doing one task in a relatively big time slot
  Don’t look at your phone or any SNS during work
Increase the speed of context switching Write down your current “context” clearly when you decide to switch
  Finish the task then switch, make your “context” to be empty.

Are you a compiler PhD, a interpreter PhD or a Just-In-Time PhD ?

Conclusion:

Compiler — start research –> Interpreter – find a topic –> Just-In-Time

Some analogies between a program and a PhD student

Program PhD student
Source Code Book, Other’s paper
Compile Learning from book or paper
Execution Doing research
type Program  
Compiler Translate code into native instructions beforehand.  
  Compile slow, execute fast  
Interpreter Translate code into lower level code when executing  
  No compiling process, execute slow  
Just-In-Time Translate repeat part of code into native code during execution  
  No compile time, execute fast  
type PhD
Compiler Learn every needed skills/courses before research
  OR Conduct research from the first day, learn whatever needed in detail during research
  Long preparing time, fast research
Interpreter Conduct research from the first day, roughly learn whatever needed during research.
  Almost no preparing time, but slow research pace.
Just-In-Time Conduct research from the first day, only learn those repeated required knowledge in detail, and the rest roughly.
  Almost no preparing time, increasing faster research pace.

Being a compiler student is wasting time, you don’t really know what will be used in the future. (I think I was a compiler when I was in the last year of high school, just learnt the same thing too much.)

Being an interpreter student makes you feel hard: you have too many new things to learn, and each time you can not truly master them, which means you are going to learn them again next time. You don’t feel safe.

Being a Just-In-Time student is a better option. You learn everything at first. And you decide to stop a little bit to truly understand some frequent knowledge. You feel safe gradually. However, your research path should make some knowledge frequent – you should have a topic.

To sum up, as a PhD student, you have the right to become a compiler at first, but don’t stop there and continue learning a lot of courses. You should switch to an interpreter – start to conduct your research, learn new things when you face them. Then try to find a topic and become a Just-In-Time student.