UP Parser 2009-2010 Issue 1

By Gian Paolo Samson

The UP Department of Computer Science marks

the opening of a new academic year with 143

new students, one of the largest freshman

batches that it has ever accepted.

The freshmen were divided into 7 blocks and 8

CS 11 classes.

“The ultimate goal is to produce more IT-skilled

students,” says Mr. Philip Zuniga, a member of

the Undergraduate Committee. “Right now, the

DCS is only producing around 50 - 60 graduates

per year, and considering the demand in the in-

dustry, this is quite small. The current policy is to

increase the intake, and hopefully this will lead

to an increase in graduates.”

The Department also enlarged its faculty by hir-

ing 7 new members to preserve the existing

class sizes and to ensure that the quality of in-

struction does not go down.

“[We also] carefully planned the allocation of re-

sources such as labs and computers so that we

can maintain the 1 - 1 student computer ratio,”

Zuniga added.

SEMINARS FOR THE FRESHMEN

To welcome the freshmen to the Department,

members of the CS Network prepared two pro-

grams: the annual CS4CS freshman orientation,

and Intro to Linux.

The Intro to Linux hands-on tutorials were held

last July 22, 2009 in the DCS computer labora-

tories.

Organized by the UP Association of Computer

Science Majors (UP CURSOR), Association for

Computing Machinery – UP Student Chapter

(UP ACM), and UP Linux Users’ Group (Un-

PLUG), the tutorial intends to introduce the

freshmen to the open-source movement and the

Linux operating system, which is widely used in

the laboratories in the Department.

Meanwhile, the annual College Survival for

Computer Science Students (CS4CS) was held

from July 23 to 26, 2009.

The organizers of this year’s CS4CS opted to

conduct the orientation in every CS 11 lab class

during that week, following the advisory of the

Department of Health (DOH) against large gath-

erings amidst the threat of the A(H1N1) virus.

As in previous years, certain matters involving

the DCS were discussed and explained to the

freshmen, including the BS CS curriculum, re-

tention policies, and building rules.

Most of the members of the CS Network (CS

Reps, UP CURSOR, UP ACM, UnPLUG, The

UP Parser) were also present to introduce them-

selves and to promote their activities, while rep-

resentatives from the Engineering Library 2 also

had their own presentation.

Finally, Prof. Mario Carreon ended each of the

orientation programs with his much-awaited in-

spirational talk.

What the Fox?!By Rona Riza Gumia

"FIREFOX!"

The CS Firefoxes proved to the entire student

population of the College of Engineering that

they can give the latter an exciting competition

during the Engineering Cup 2009: Back to the

Classics, held throughout the months of July and

August 2009.

This year, the departments and institutes were

divided into two brackets based on their perform-

ances in the previous Engineering Cup. Bracket

A was composed of the CE Bulldozers, ME Pis-

tons, MMM Rocks, and GE Explorers. On the

other hand, Bracket B was comprised of the CS

Firefoxes, EEE Transformers, IE Optimizers, and

ChE Shredders.

The Opening Ceremony was held at the Engi-

neering Theater last July 10, 2009. The different

departments and institutes of the College heated

up the competition with their respective audio-vi-

sual presentations and cheers.

An opening friendly basketball game between

the Engineering Varsity and the IE Optimizers

(Engineering Cup 2008 Champions) had to be

cancelled, however, due to bad weather.

Nearly 100 undergraduate and graduate CS stu-

dents competed in 12 categories in 10 sporting

events.

Minor games, which include badminton, table

tennis, chess, soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, sport

climbing, chess, and Philippine games, were

scheduled on Saturdays and Mondays. Mean-

while, matches of the major events, basketball

and volleyball, were scheduled all throughout the

Cup.

The CS representatives to the Engineering Stu-

Council had aimed for a no-default season for

the Firefoxes this year. They may have failed to

achieve this goal, having two defaults, but the

record was still much better than in previous

years.

The Firefoxes bagged championships in chess,

table tennis, and Philippine games, putting the

Team at the top of the minor games category.

However, failure to make it to the semi-finals in

all major events put the team to an over-all

standing of seventh, a level higher than the pre-

vious years’ lowly eighth position.

The Closing Ceremony was held at Park 9,

Katipunan last August 7. Plaques and trophies

were given to the winners, while an all-star game

was held as the curtains closed on this year’s

Cup. Rab Medina, Patrick Consunji, and Roel

Zacarias were the ones chosen to repre

sent the department in the game.

continued on page 2

PARSERTURNS 10By Crystal Beatrice Camarao

In 1999, Jonel Uy, a CS Representative, had an

idea of starting a publication for the Department

with the primary purpose of information dissem-

ination. During that time, the Engineering

Logscript was defunct, and so CS students did-

n’t have access to important and relevant news

about the college. Jonel took the initiative and

sought for the approval of the department chair.

He then formed a staff, with Maru Velas as the

Editor-in-Chief. Parser released its first issue

ever in August 2009, and staked its claim as the

College’s first ever department-based student

publication.

Unfortunately, Parser also became defunct in

2002 due to financial reasons. Two years later,

through the efforts of the CS Representatives

Carlos Lasa, Ponch Mante, Chicco Reyes, and

Michael Sepulveda, and under the leadership

of Philip Kimpo Jr., the Parser was revived.

Philip served as EIC for two years, during which

the publication produced a total of five outstand-

ing issues. Even more importantly, they ex-

panded the circulation through a website, e-mail

newsletters, and bulletin board versions.

Joebet del Rosario continued this legacy as EIC

from AY 2006 to 2007. However, Parser be-

came defunct yet again after that, and last aca-

demic year, Parser underwent a revival once

more. This issue, the first for this academic

year, celebrates an important milestone in

Parser’s history—its tenth anniversary.

For the past decade, Parser has been the voice

of the UP DCS student population. Staying true

to its motto, “Analyzing Life the CS Way,” Parser

has provided an avenue of communication and

a means of self-expression for the DCS com-

munity. Moreover, Parser has proved that CS

students can have writing and artistic talents,

and not just programming skills.

Today, in a world where print media is becoming

more and more obsolete, the challenge for

Parser lies in proving otherwise, especially in

such a tech-savvy community like that of DCS.

It has adapted to the new, emerging form of

media—social media such as Facebook, Twit-

ter, and the like—but continues to produce print

copies in keeping with its rich heritage. Even

more importantly, Parser believes that the De-

partment is best served through the most ac-

cessible and most tangible medium available.

Parser has always been dedicated to giving the

DCS community the best, most dependable,

and most passionately-made publication it can

every issue. It will certainly continue to do so for

this year and the years to come.

DCS welcomes newfreshman batch

www.upparser.com

By Gian Paolo Samson and Joven Sebido

52 BS CS graduates marched down in the UP

Theater during the Engineering Recognition

Rites held last April 24, 2009.

The graduates comprise the batch that featured

the highest number of honor graduates in the

history of the College of Engineering.

The graduates who made it with honors were,

namely, Ralph Rainiel Pineda (magna cum

laude), Pedro Ilustreto Publico (magna cum

laude), Jennylyn Sze (magna cum laude), Mae

Sincere Slenda (cum laude), Kelvin Buño (cum

laude), Joana Heidi Castillo (cum laude), Maria

Cecille Castro (cum laude), Maureen Gail Geray

(cum laude), Ralph Jonathan Ignacio (cum

laude), Carl Immanuel Manalo (cum laude),

Maryann Puyaoan (cum laude), Melany Rosales

(cum laude), and Daryl Johnas Sison (cum

laude).

GRADUATION PARTY

Prior to the Recognition Rites, the graduates cel-

ebrated with the rest of their batchmates at Flap-

jacks Technohub last April 16.

The commencement celebration, entitled “CS

Reel Finale 2009,” was attended by 33 gradu-

ates, 12 members of the DCS faculty and staff,

and some other guests and alumni.

The attendees arrived at around 6 o’clock in the

evening as their favorite American series char-

acters. The program started with the opening re-

marks of Dr. Jaime Caro, Chairperson of DCS,

followed by an inspirational talk given by Mr.

Jonathan Robles of SeaChange Philippines Inc.

Special performances from THEN and CURSOR

Dance Group were rendered to entertain the

crowd while having dinner. A DCS alumni oath-

taking ceremony was led by Mr. James Wyson,

followed by a toast to the graduates by Ms.

Christine Clarin.

The party was not complete without the an-

nouncement of special awards. Marie Tabugadir

received the Batch Alumni Representative

award; Mr. Congeniality and Crush ng Bayan

awards went to Franz delos Reyes; Lalaine

Chen got the Most Talented award; Crush Ang

Bayan award went to Carlo Santos; Slumber

Party Award and Geekiest CS went to Ralph

Pineda; Marte Soliza was hailed the Richie Rich;

while Ms. Milagros Ramos was voted Batch Su-

perstar.

The celebration ended with the inspirational

message of Prof. Evangel Quiwa, one of the pi-

oneers of Computer Science in UP Diliman.

The party was made possible by the Computer

Science Representatives to the Engineering Stu-

dent Council.

52 DCS students graduate during Engineering Recognition Rites

TEAM CAPTAINS’ INSIGHTS

“Sa wakas ay nasama ang chess sa Eng'g Cup.

At smashing victory dahil tayo ang unang cham-

pions nito. Salamat sa chess teammates ko.

Next year ulit ah."

- Joel Acuin, Chess team captain

"Philippine games ang the best sport talaga sa

Eng'g Cup. Kitang-kita yung camaraderie ng CS

Firefoxes kasi hanggang sa huli lumalaban pa

din! Nagbunga ang ating pagtitiyaga dahil first

tayo! Thank you sa lahat ng mga naglaro! Ang

swerte talaga natin, sana lagi na lang idaan sa

bato-bato pik yung laban. Thanks thanks!"

- Angel Macabenta, Philippine Games teamcaptain

"Una, thank you sa ESC for making this event

possible. Pangalawa, sa department coordinator

namin kasi super supportive niya sa amin at

never siyang nagkulang. Finally, sa CS Firefoxes

kasi ang fun ng event kasi lagi silang andun."

- Majo Santos, Women's Volleyball team cap-tain

"From the very start, alam ko nang underdog na

kami. Pero I know na that didn't stop our team

from doing and giving our best. Thankful ako sa

teammates ko kasi complete kami lagi sa lahat

ng games. Nakita ko yung support ng lahat all

throughout. We may not have the best talents

pero we are the best TEAM. Again, thank you

teammates and supporters."

- Pauline Pablo, Women's Basketball teamcaptain

“Any neutral observer would say, our games

could have gone either way.

It's unfair how people only look at the scoresheet

after each game. I can't blame them.

But too bad because there was something else

on display that matters even more. That's the

spectacular effort that each of my team mates

put in. Clearly mismatched, on paper, in terms

of skill, they put on a tremendous showing

against players who were clearly more talented

and athletic. They scrapped their way at every-

thing given to them, and each time they were

able to thwart it away, running like hell and fight-

ing for the ball like any real fighter would. Devoid

of chemistry, they won their personal battles in

the field. It was the only thing that brought the

team together and the only chemistry at all (if

you could call it that) and in the end, it would be

more than enough.

I'd like to acclaim the unsung heroes of the

team—that is, each and every player who went

out there. Special mentions to Ton Torres and his

superhuman saves, Kurt Espinosa who ran tire-

lessly to bring the ball to our opponent’s half and

Joniel Ibasco who swept the defensive line from

end to end. You guys had the bravery to make a

difference, playing with a heart full of love.”

- Jeune Asuncion, Soccer team captain

"For a moment, we were liberated from mind tor-

menting machine problems and exams. We

were so hooked up in the games that at times,

we felt we were professional athletes with a mis-

sion to shut down our enemy. Though we weren't

able to come up with an algorithm to get us out

of an infinite loop of losing, we still had FUN.

Sana mas maraming games! Good job ESC!"

- Rab Medina, Men's Basketball team captain

"Engineering Cup 09 sure was a great event. We

had ups and downs during the competition pero

sana lahat tayo nag-enjoy sa bawat laro. We still

have many years to come to improve our skills

and to get that first place, kelangan lang natin

matuto sa mga pagkakamali natin at kelangan

lang ng more practice at i-enjoy ang bawat

game. Salamat sa lahat ng nag-participate, kung

wala kayo baka maraming games ang na-de-

fault. Sana sumali ulit kayo next year. Galingan

natin in the years to come! Good luck sa atin CS

Firefoxes!!! What The FOX?!? Firefox!"

- Julian Fabic, Sport Climbing team captain

"Masaya! Kaya lang maputik lang talaga kaya

hindi kami masyado makatakbo. Wala rin kasi

kaming spike shoes kaya nahirapan kami pero

kung sakaling meron kami, nakalaban kami sig-

uro ng maayos."

- Patrick Consunji, Ultimate team captain

"Ang saya ng Eng’g Cup ngayon. Congrats ESC

at CS reps! At super happy din dahil champion

kami sa Table Tennis! Thank you sa mga players

na naglaro at sa Firefoxes para sa cheering!

Let's go Firefox, let's go! What the fox?!?"

- Joan Bagunu, Table Tennis team captain

"Overall, the Engineering Cup 2009 was a suc-

cess. Though there were a few things that can

be improved upon like far-away venues, the

event was well coordinated. The addition of

'minor' sporting events gave chance for other de

partments to excel. The Department Coordinator

of DCS also made an excellent job of empower-

ing the players, resulting to an almost no-default

Engineering Cup season."

- Jase Tiojanco, Men's Volleyball team cap-tain

"Sana next time one week din ang badminton

para hindi pagod ang mga players. Kawawa

naman yung mga mababa ang stamina. Pero

kahit na onti lang ang time allotted for the event,

fun pa rin naman. Next year, I’ll try to find the

best player the department could get. Yun ay

kung ako pa rin ang head ng badminton next

year. I would like to thank the players who rep-

resented the department at the Eng’g Cup 2009.

Go CS Firefoxes!"

- Jerome Sabidong, Badminton team captain

What the Fox?! (continued from page 1)

CS student or-ganizations con-duct workshopson open-sourceapplications andlanguages By Ranyel Bryan Maliwanag

The Knowledge, Information and Skills Shar-

ing Sessions (KISSS) 2009 were held at the

UP Alumni Engineer's Centennial Hall (UP

AECH) last July 4 and 6, 2009.

Organized by the UP Association of Computer

Science Majors (UP CURSOR), the Associa-

tion for Computing Machinery – UP Student

Chapter (UP ACM), and the University of the

Philippines Linux Users’ Group (UnPLUG),

KISSS 2009 is a two-day event that serves as

a venue where students can learn about var-

ious technologies not usually introduced or

emphasized in universities’ curricula.

The focus of this year’s edition was on open-

source software applications and languages.

Topics covered were Blender, an open-source

3D graphics application; Java FX, a software

platform for creating and delivering Internet

applications that can run on various con-

nected devices; GIMP (GNU Image Manipu-

lation Program), a free software raster

graphics editor; and HTML with CSS and Java

Script.

The workshop speakers on the first day were

Mr. Dennis Jorolan of the Asian Academy of

Business and Computers (AABC) for Blender,

and Ms. Ruzette Tanyag, UP’s Sun Campus

Ambassador, for Java FX.

On the second day, Mr. Gerardo Maria Roxas

talked about GIMP, while Mr. Michael Angelo

Chatto gave his piece on HTML with CSS and

Java Script.

Each of the participants brought home free-

bies at the end of the workshops.

YES--EXTRASPACE

Make this yours now!

Send your contributions to:

[email protected]

By Audrey Garais and Jose Luis Santos

Being sexy never looked as good as the UP As-

sociation of Computer Science Majors (UP CUR-

SOR) celebrated its 26 years of existence.

CURSOR SPORTSFEST

The festivities kicked off with the annual CUR-

SOR Sportsfest held last August 15, 2009.

Even though it was a Saturday, members, appli-

cants, and fellow alumni gathered together to

harness, exhibit, and show off their skills in dif-

ferent sports. The sports events were basketball,

volleyball, Frisbee, soccer, and the e-sportsfest.

The Green Team was comprised of the Activities

Committee, Records Committee, and Finance

Committee. The Red Team was made up of the

Membership Committee, Information and Public

Relations Committee, Academic Affair Commit-

tee, and External Affairs Committee. The CUR-

SOR Alumni made up the Blue Team, while,

lastly, the White Team was made up of this se-

mester’s batch of applicants.

The main events in the morning were the bas-

ketball and volleyball playoffs at the Maginhawa

Court near the UP campus. In the afternoon, the

Frisbee and soccer games were held at the UP

Sunken Garden. This was followed by the e-

sportsfest held at the 129 Cafe along Katipunan

Avenue.

The Blue Team won the basketball and volleyball

playoffs, while the Red Team was declared

Champion in the Frisbee event.

JUNIOR PROGRAMMERS’ CONFERENCE

This year’s Junior Programmers’ Conference

(JPC) was held last August 17, 2009 at the UP

AECH Lecture Hall from 10 AM to 3 PM.

One of the mainstay events during CURSOR

Week, the JPC aims to promote awareness

about computing among students during as early

as their high school years.

For this year’s Conference, the participating

schools were Elizabeth Seton School, Grace

Christian College, and St. Stephen’s School.

The conference started off with a lecture on the

Open Source Movement by Dr. Pablo Manalas-

tas. This was followed by a talk about Gaming

by Mr. Mario Carreon. Lastly, Web 2.0 was dis-

cussed by Ms. Ia Lucero.

@RTE MOVEMENT

UP CURSOR also continues to promote digital

art as a hobby and as a profession through its

annual @rte Movement.

For this year, the chosen theme for the Move-

ment is, “Childhood Memories.”

The @rte Movement is composed of two sub-

events, namely, the @rte Seminar and the @rte

Attack.

The @rte Seminar was held last August 22,

2009 at the UP AECH Lecture hall from 1 PM to

4 PM. Before anything else, Ms Jonah Chipeco

represented CURSOR’s partner foundation,

World Vision, in her talk to encourage the partic-

ipants to help out for a good cause.

This was followed by a talk of Mr. Christian San

Jose, a graphic designer and illustrator, about

designing t-shirts and his experiences on digital

design. Afterwards, a presentation of Mr. Jethro

Ibarrola and Mr. Crimson Castellon from the

Cosplay Photographers Guild followed. Lastly,

Mr. John Alaras, Director of Creative Designs of

CREO Studios, demonstrated his knowledge

and shared his experiences in motion graphics.

On the other hand, the @rte Attack is a digital

art and photography contest open to everyone.

The participants are tasked to incorporate the

given theme in their entries.

Jeanella Klarysa Pascual won both the First

Place Award for her digital art entitled, “Don’t Let

Me” and the People’s Choice Award for her art-

work entitled, “We Will Not Grow Old.”

Paul Cyril D. Torrente won Second place for his

digitally rendered photograph entitled “Pixelated

Past,” while Bernadette T. Guiamoy won Third

Place for her photograph entitled, “Childhood

Hero.”

The top ten entries are currently being auctioned

off to raise money for CURSOR”s partner foun-

dation, World Vision, in hopes of sending a child

to school.

BLACKOUT: CURSOR PARTY

The month-long festivities ended with a bang last

August 29, 2009 at Absinth Bar, Greenbelt 3,

Makati.

The night started with a simple program to hon-

our the outstanding members of each commit-

tee. Afterwards, the @rte Attack Bidding was of-

ficially opened. Finally, after all formalities were

over, the attendees turned to the bar and the

dance floor to unwind and celebrate twenty-six

years of sexiness.

It was a night of music, fun, and a whole lot of

dancing. Although it was UP CURSOR’s an-

niversary party, it was open to other guests as

well. The organization partied the night away,

reminiscing the good times shared together and

the bad times that had made them stronger.

Cheers to twenty-six years of being sexy!

ABOUT UP CURSOR

The UP CURSOR is a duly recognized, non-sec-

tarian, non-profit, socio-academic student organ-

ization based in the UP College of Engineering.

Since its foundation in August 1983, UP CUR-

SOR has grown from an informal group of 15

Computer Science majors into a family of almost

120 students whose efforts are integrated in pur-

suit of academic growth and excellence.


IBM’s DB2 on Campus Program made its way

to UP last June 20, 2009 at the Lecture Hall of

the UP DCS.

The DB2 on Campus Program is a project of

tech giant IBM designed to promote the use of

DB2, a relational database management system

(RDBMS) developed by the company, in univer-

sities. The visit to UP is the first such implemen-

tation of the project in the Philippines.

Present to give the lecture was no less than Raul

Chong, the program manager of DB2 on Cam-

pus.

The focus of the lecture was supposed to be on

Web 2.0 and how DB2 can be used to make ap-

plications for the Web. However, a crash course

on relational databases and XML also had to be

introduced because the audience was almost

entirely composed of first-year students.

Program demonstrations were done using IBM

DB2 Express-C, a free variant of the RDBMS.

After the technical discussion, Chong also con-

ducted a brief lecture about setting career goals

and networking. He also invited the attendees to

apply as a DB2 Student Ambassador. Interested

students may do so by sending an email to

[email protected].

DB2 on Campus visits UP TED goes to UPBy Daniela Marie Delgado

The first independently-organized TED event in

the Philippines was held last June 22, 2009 at

the Lecture Hall, UP Alumni Engineers Centen-

nial Hall.

The talk, TEDxUP, featured pre-recorded talks

about technology and education from re-

spected speakers all over the world.

Among the featured technology videos were

MIT's Pattie Maes' talk about Sixth Sense, a

projector-equipped wearable device that allows

the wearer to interact with his/her environment;

World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim

Berners-Lee's presentation on Linked Data, a

term used to describe the practice of connect-

ing data on the Semantic Web using a derefer-

enceable Uniform Resource Identifier (URI);

and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams' Odeo

project, an online directory for RSS syndicated

audio and video.

Meanwhile, there were also videos of Richard

Baraniuk, Gever Tulley, and Sir Ken Robinson

talking about a vision of an online education

system, 5 dangerous things parents should let

their kids do, and reasons why schools kill cre-

ativity, respectively.

The event ended with an open forum with Prof.

Rommel Feria, Prof. Rowena Solamo and Sir

Joel Yuvienco.


Students and professionals converged to learn

about web techniques and technologies during

the Spin the Web Lecture Series last August 29,

September 5, and September 12, 2009.

The series, organized by the Association for

Computing Machinery – UP Student Chapter

(UP ACM), featured lectures on web design ba-

sics, the Groovy and Grails platform, and web

usability.

Ms. Anne Michelle Santos, a faculty member

from the University of Santo Tomas (UST), dis-

cussed web design basics, including Web/GUI

design heuristics, and 2009 design trends in her

lecture last August 29.

This was followed a week later by a lecture on

the Groovy and Grails platform by Mr. Red

Deinla, a junior developer from Orange & Bronze

Software Labs, Ltd.

Groovy is an open source dynamic language for

the Java Virtual Machine. On the other hand,

Grails is an open source web application plat-

form that applies the principle of Convention

over Configuration. The two were made espe-

cially for each other to deliver web-based appli-

cations that can rival Ruby on Rails in terms of

efficiency.

Finally, Mr. Regnard Raquedan of the Philippine

Usability Group led a discussion and a workshop

on the basic principles behind web usability.

UP ACM organizes a lecture series on webdesign and development

EMC2009:LOCAL toGLOBALBy Daniela Marie Delgado

In line with the College of Engineering's cen-

tennial celebration, this year’s Engineering

Marketing Congress challenges every student

to become the 100th local engineer who made

it as a global pioneer.

Now on its sixth year, the EMC aims to help stu-

dent engineers learn the language of marketing

as it can be used in the future in the corporate

world.

Thirty-one participating teams, composed of

three to five members each, are tasked to

choose a recent research project from their re-

spective departments, and be able to present

a globally competitive marketing strategy for it.

Training sessions are held throughout the sem-

inar series where participants get guidelines,

workshops, and motivation from respected

speakers and judges from the corporate and

communications world.

By Ryan Kristofer Arana

The first TechnoTalk was held last August 27,

2009 at the Lecture Hall, Alumni Engineers Cen-

tennial Hall (AECH).

Technotalk, organized by the UP Association of

Computer Science Majors (UP CURSOR), is a

series of monthly talks on different areas in com-

puter science.

John Paul Alcala tackled Test-Driven Develop-

ment. TDD is a software development practice

that mandates the writing of test code to produce

codes that are simple yet in high quality.

Mr. Alcala was followed by Jan Michael Ibañez,

who discussed the Google App Engine, which is

a platform for developing and hosting web appli-

cations in Google-managed data centers.

Both speakers are from Orange & Bronze Soft-

ware Labs, Ltd.

UP CURSOR’s TechnoTalk kicks Off

By Emerico Aguilar

Pursue medical school and you will need a decade of earnest diligence before your name becomes

prefixed with “Dr.” Enroll in a computer science program and you will be racking up titles even before

you graduate. And by the time that you have mastered the art of abstracting concepts and objects

to suit your problem-solving needs, you yourself would have already been generalized by society

into a set of distinct characteristics, a simplification that’s befitting mere concepts and objects. Yes,

such is the nature of stereotypes being attached to computer science majors that, it seems, there’s

no escaping them (no, not even with escape characters).

These stereotypes, of course, didn’t come from nowhere. They arise from notions--some out of ig-

norance, others a product of our own arrogance--that have reached the collective psyche of a soci-

ety. Now that computers are becoming more ubiquitous each passing day, the public is also gaining

awareness with the people associated with them. Thus, unless we want to be plagued with preju-

dices and false impressions, it’s up to us to dispel certain myths, provide background to our idio-

syncrasies, and bring to light our true, more colorful selves.

So here are insights to some of the more popular stereotypes bestowed to our field and to anyone

who’s affiliated with it:

GEEKS. The granddaddy of computer science stereotypes. Some mention “geek” with reverence,

while others say it with a hint of discrimination. Of late, there are even those who use this term to

take part in the growing trend of embracing this culture. But to us, this is simply our way of living.

By virtue of immersing ourselves with the topics of algorithms and programming, we are automati-

cally inducted to this club, whether we like it or not. There’s nothing to be ashamed about this,

though, as it is a reference to one’s eagerness to pursue certain knowledge. Still, it’s just a label,

and at any given time, you can scrape if off like a mud on your skin, or you can wear like it’s the

slickest bling.

TECHNOPHILES. To say that we display strong interests in gadgets and technology is an under-

statement. We eat, play, and even sleep with our machines. We spend hours trying out the latest

websites and software applications, suffering withdrawal symptoms if we fail to do so. Kidding aside,

these behaviors are simply a result of circumstance, or maybe one’s passion for learning, but not

hardcore fanaticism. Well, we do love gadgets and other techie stuff (why else would we have

ended up in a course that starts with “computer”?), but not to the extreme.

YOUR NEXT-DOOR COMPUTER MECHANIC. It is not uncommon for acquaintances to consult us

about their ailing computer. However, if our reply to their inquiry is a puzzling look, they will give us

an even more puzzling stare in return. It’s not that I have anything against computer mechanics; it’s

just that people expect us to be like them, where in fact, we barely touch the subject matter of com-

puter hardware. We can’t blame them for this misconception, though. With a name so obscure that

even its own students are often confused to what it is really all about, computer science is sure to

attract some misinterpretations. Actually, a lot of us do know how to handle a few of hardware prob-

lems, learned not from classrooms but from encountering similar situations at 3’o clock in the morn-

ing when deadline for a project is just a few hours away. Just don’t expect too much from us in this

aspect.

COMPUTER GAME ADDICTS. First of all, we don’t have a monopoly over this type of addiction.

People from diverse backgrounds get hooked to computer gaming as much as we do. Heck, even

businessmen engage in overnight DotA matchups. While at it, I might add that, in case we are such,

we have the most sensible excuse for being so, since we spend a great bulk of our time staring at

our monitors. It’s not easy to refuse temptation, you know. Second, this notion is not entirely true.

“Occasional gamer” might be a better term. With so many tasks at hand, we’ll be lucky to find time

to play Minesweeper. OK, it’s not that bad, but you get the point. Third, not all of us are into gaming.

Many of our kind actually prefer more outgoing, social activities for spending some spare time.

HACKERS. Definitely the most flattering comment you can give to a programmer. Sadly, not all of

us can lay claim to this much sought title. Yet, in popular media, this term has been used too loosely

that it undermines the skills and knowledge of those who can truly hack a system. In reality, this is

only reserved for top-tiered programmers, the cream of the crop. Hackers are like the LeBrons and

the Kobes of the programming world.

DOMINATED BY MEN. Perhaps, in numbers only, though this is still arguable. But definitely not in

its figurative sense. Not even close. Check out local programming competitions and you’ll see chicks

kicking some men’s butts (yes, mine got whacked too). You don’t even have to look far to dismiss

this claim. At the DCS, the ladies are just as good as the dudes. It’s all about dedication, not gen-

der.

NO SOCIAL LIFE. Being a student, or a product, of computer science doesn’t necessarily equate

to a life lived without much exposure to the world outside. This is still a matter of personal choice,

regardless of your degree or occupation. To each his/her own. What probably gave rise to this notion

is the nature of our course. If you are assigned a software project, you already have enough re-

sponsibilities to keep you busy for one semester. Mix this with machine problems, problem sets and

another project or two, and you’ll be gasping for time. So it’s not surprising if we don’t get to socialize

as much as other people do. Nonetheless, there are still some who manage to party every weekend

and fulfill their requirements at the same time. It all boils down to time management.

These are just some of the computer science stereotypes. Regardless of whether these traits apply

to us or not, one fact remains: there is certainly more to us than our crude portrayal.

So please, stop typecasting us. We’re not variables.

CS Stereotypes:Setting the RecordStraight

By Ava Marie Tan

“Alcohol and Calculus don’t mix. Don’t drink and derive.”

Only a full-pledged nerd thinks like that. The loner who has unkept hair, thick glasses, braces, and

lanky posture. One who probably loves 7¥p1n9 £1|{3 7h1$ (“typing like this” in l33t language) and

has known what staple-free staples are so long ago. Also, he’s the guy who has the highest chance

of being busted by that rich, snobbish girl who’s been hailed as the queen since sixth grade.

We know nerds, plastics, jocks, and burnouts in high school. Some of these groups may no longer

exist in college but we can never escape stereotypes.

Stereotypes are commonly held notions or images about a certain group. People base it on first im-

pressions and observations. These notions are embedded in words like “nerd” and “cheerleader” -

-- images are evoked and easily understood by people who share the same views.

Stereotyping is part of the human culture. The characteristics we relate with certain sets of people

are either good or bad. Genders, nationalities, and ethnic groups have their own. Women are be-

lieved to be bad drivers, black men are said to be better in basketball, and Ilocanos are looked upon

as stingy. There will always be groups and classifications as it simplifies the task of knowing some-

body. Thus, everyone cannot escape from stereotyping.

Yes, that means WE can’t.

Computer Science majors are stereotyped as geeks, hardcore gamers, gadget freaks and much to

my annoyance, (future) computer technicians. CS majors aren’t all geeks; in fact, in our own culture,

we have our own set of stereotypes.

1. Extra-terrestrial – This group is composed of “nerds” and students whose programming and think-

ing abilities are, well, extra-terrestrial. Some of these ETs don’t really look like the classic nerd but

are always seen sulking behind their laptops, looking into lines and lines of code. When they’re

away from their computers, they are “hanging out” with their geeky friends.

2. Ninja – The epitome of “looks can be deceiving”. You won’t even suspect that they’re geniuses

until your first MP deadline or defense. They can make instant MPs and could cram the MP you’ve

been working on for weeks. When you see them, you won’t even suspect that they are some kind

of ET. They just look normal. They aren’t addicted to codes as much as true blue ETs do but in class,

beware…

3. Casper – They don’t show up in class but still get good grades. Period.

4. GC – Another classic aside from nerds. All of us might belong to this group once in a while but

there are grade-conscious people all the way. Hardcore GCs snag every bonus available and rarely

give chance to others (this comes from a bitter experience). They will do everything for that one-

point-zero. They are jealous with Ninjas, both in grades and in social life.

5. Do it Yourself (DIY) – They sleep through classes and when they’re awake, they always appear

disoriented. They are interested in computer (and sometimes geeky) stuff --- except today’s CS lec-

ture. Their MPs are great but often late because they’re always doing other things such as making

keygens, assembling MIDI controllers, and hacking PC games. Unlike ETs, they get low scores

when it comes to academics but they still manage to pass subjects thanks to lecture slides, APIs,

and e-books found in the internet. They might be our future hackers.

6. Sleepwalkers – The YM and Plurk night residents. They leave their computers online even though

they’re already asleep. Sometimes they stay up all night, sometimes they just sleep a few hours be-

fore their first classes. Some of them aren’t insomniacs until college--- they just got used to screen

sucking after being forced to stay up late for MPs and thesis. Sleepwalkers can be easily spotted at

school. Their eye bags are quite distinguishable even from afar.

7. In Denial – Clearly, Computer Science isn’t their first choice. Or it could have been when they

passed their UPCAT forms, but their course preference changed as MP and MP went by… To shift

or not to shift, that is the question.

8. Coffeeholics – They can’t get through the day without their daily caffeine fix. Coffee from Star-

bucks, Seattle’s, and Bo’s are their companions to every CS work. This is a stereotype for rich kids,

or for those who at least appear to be. Of course, you won’t buy P 100+ coffee without the money.

9. Survivors – For every CS student (except for the ETs, GCs and a few people, that is), our course

becomes a monster at some point in our lives. There are people who are in danger of being KO’d

every year --- some of them manage to stay, some of them fail. There are people who got this threat

only once but there are people who after, two, three --- okay, I don’t know if anyone is that brave to

receive three chances of being kicked out --- amazingly survives and continues studying as a CS

major.

10. Commoners – The reason why they are called ‘commoners’ because there is nothing unique

about them. They are ‘go-with-the-flow” people and they are the ones who are hard to remember.

They are pretty much average in academics, wallflowers when it comes to extra-curriculars and they

like to stick with their own kind.

In reality, each person is a combination of multiple stereotypes. These are merely notions and one

stereotype can’t completely describe someone. There are “good stereotypes”. For example, Asians

are good at Math. But stereotyping is wrong, one should get to know a person first before judging

them. Stereotyping strongly affects people’s interactions and hinders friendship among different

types of people.

Also, one shouldn’t stick with stereotypes. All Asians aren’t good at Math because I, for one, suck

with numbers.

Sorting CS Students

Hey there future programmers, long time no

Tweet. Here I am again bringing you the latest

bits and bytes of buzz fresh from DCS!

One of my reliable resources, Minimax88, pri-

vate-Plurked me this:

Spotted around DCS, a pointless view of anMVC application.

During moments of too much Create, Update,

and Delete requests, this view was nowhere to

be seen. How ironic. The poor model and con-

troller can’t do anything about it, and they end

up overworked to compensate. And when the

workload becomes simple Read requests, here

comes the view to say hello to them.

My oh my, this view should be hidden to conceal

its nasty errors.

Yet another of my trusted resources, Skyper-

Viper, told me through live streaming this:

Spotted everywhere in UPAECH, a malware

that is driving everyone crazy.

This not-so-little malware pretends to be nice

and approachable whenever many people are

around. But when the people go away, this mal-

ware steps out from its shroud of pretentious-

ness. Its attacks are vicious; bitching around

and shouting are some of its favorite activities.

Even my very own informant was not spared.

Sorry malware, people are starting to block you

in their firewalls.

By Janelle Lagmay

It was the first day of class and I was eating

alone at the Eng’g cafe. After I finished eating, I

didn’t know if I had to return my plate to the

counter, or wait for somebody to clean it up. I

was waiting until others left their table, but the

place was crowded and people were waiting for

me to leave. I took my plate and brought it to the

counter and the lady told me the bus boys would

pick it up for me. She was hesitating whether to

get it or not, and for ten painfully embarrassing

seconds, I was standing there, in front of upper-

classmen, with a plate of half-eaten macaroni.

Good thing I don’t wander off into Melchor Hall

much these days.

***

Our CS 32 exam was held in the Engineering

Theater and we left our bags at the back. Even-

tually, the cold got to me and my nose started to

run badly. As luck would have it, I left my hand-

kerchief in my bag. I didn’t want to stand up and

get it, so I just covered my nose with my hand

and proceeded to answer the exam. I still had

one hand covering my nose when I turned in my

answer sheet and our Prof gave me a puzzled

look. I went straight to the bathroom afterwards.

***

It was raining heavily that day so I decided to

ride the Toki going to Math. I wasn’t aware that

the jeep had to take a detour through CP Garcia.

When everybody got off in front of NIP, I followed

but I couldn’t find the Math Building! I was so lost

and when I finally got to class, my shoes were

covered in mud. What a way to start the day.

***

Our professor was finishing off explaining our

MP and the class was starting to get rowdy. I

heard him ask “Any questions?”, and I re-

sponded with a loud “No.” My classmates looked

at me and laughed but I didn’t know why. Then

my seatmate told me that he actually said, “Feel

free to talk to me if you have any questions.”

During the registration week, I had to go to Mel-

chor Hall to get an Add Mat form. Unfortunately,

as the jeep passed by the Shopping Center, it

started to rain very hard. I found out that I left my

umbrella in the CS Building so I just took a round

trip back to our building. It was embarrassing

enough that the driver recognized me and asked

where I was getting off, but as was I taking my

umbrella from the rack, some students were giv-

ing me suspicious looks as if I was stealing an

umbrella.

***

I was running late for class and when I got to the

classroom, I was surprised to find them taking

an exam. The instructor gave me my question-

naire and told me I had 30 minutes left. I looked

around, saw a few familiar faces, looked at my

paper and saw “CS 135”. Wrong class! I gave

him back the questionnaire, headed to my actual

class, and again they were taking an exam. At

least that time it was just a quiz.

By Jase Tiojanco

As computer science students, most of us hardly have a clue of what is in store for us after gradu-

ation. All we know is that right now, we program. We program in our laboratory classes, or we pro-

gram when we have machine problems.

To get an idea on how it is to become a professional programmer, I decided to take up CS 195 last

summer. CS 195 is the summer internship elective that is taken by many even though it is not re-

quired. Some take it because they want to experience how it is to become a professional program-

mer, while others take it simply because they want an additional source of money during the summer

break. I took it for the former.

The internship experience goes way back to the middle part of the second semester. This is when

students apply for internship positions in several companies. I was one of the students who combed

through the booths of CAPES in search of a company who would hire me as an intern.

After submitting resumes and application forms, I went through a lot of exams and interviews. Three

companies offered me an internship position, but in the end, I went for Azeus Systems. Why? Well,

their office is the closest to our home. Plus, their allowance is satisfactory.

Like my first day in school, my first day at work made me feel excited and nervous at the same time.

I, along with the other interns, was brought to a waiting room until the Officer-in-Charge of Azeus’

Internship program arrived. We went through an orientation which was similar to the one given to

new employees. I vividly remember the reaction all of us had when we were informed that there

was a five-million-peso fine for violating any of the rules presented to us during the orientation. No

one will be tattling about anything Azeus-related, that’s for sure.

During the first few days of the Internship Program, things were pretty exciting. We researched about

our project, discussed how we would tackle the problem, and implemented our proposed solutions.

Add to that the fact that we were getting to know our fellow interns. We looked forward to our free

snacks during the morning and afternoon. Those days were really great!

The very first time we felt unbelievably nervous was when we were informed about the first demo

of our project. Everyone was going crazy, even working overtime just to polish the program. We

checked our programs for all possible errors until we could find no more faults. All the efforts paid

off when judgment day came and our software impressed the evaluator, who was no less than one

of the top programmers in Azeus.

After our first demo, everyday seemed very much like the previous one. I go to work early, time-in,

work, eat, work, and then leave. There were bright spots such as fun conversations with my co-in-

terns but at the end of the day, I couldn’t help but feel as if I have experienced the same day the

previous day. The only days that I truly looked forward to were the fifteenth and thirtieth days of

every month when our allowances were given to us.

I am a person who is very much against living a routine-based life. If there’s one thing I realized in

my internship experience, it is that I don’t want to work as a programmer. I love interacting with other

people and I don’t want a computer as my companion for eight hours a day. But that’s just me; I’m

not saying being a programmer is a job that will bore everyone.

Try being an intern yourself, maybe you’d love it, maybe you won’t.

A Taste of the ProfessionalProgrammer Life

Everyone dreams about the future, but have you

thought about your future thesis topic lately? The

word “thesis” strikes fear to most students be-

cause we do not know what to do or even where

to start. All we know is that, we have to finish one

before we could graduate. Thesis topics in our

department can be divided into research groups

whose laboratories are housed on the third floor

of the Alumni Engineers’ Centennial Hall

(AECH).

There are six general research groups sup-

ported by the department. These are: Computer

Vision and Machine Intelligence, Web Science,

Theoretical Computer Science, Networking and

Distributed Systems, Computer Security, and

Scientific Computing.

Thankfully, these research laboratories now ac-

cept apprentices for those interested to experi-

ence and learn.

For incoming seniors, application for member-

ship is done during the first few weeks of the first

semester of their senior year. The student (or

group) is allowed to choose which research

group to apply to that is in line with his/her (or

their) interests.

The Computer Vision & Machine Intelligence

Group is concerned with the understanding and

construction of complex systems whose under-

lying computation utilizes to a substantial degree

the methods proper to or closely associated with

artificial intelligence. Examples of these methods

are heuristic search, knowledge representation,

logical and probabilistic inference, statistical and

structural pattern recognition, and evolutionary

computation. Special emphasis will be given to

Computer Vision and AI applications to Bioinfor-

matics.

The CVMIG accepts membership applications

for thesis per group. Each group can have a

maximum of three people. The groups are en-

couraged to think of a topic about computer vi-

sion and machine intelligence as early as

possible if they are really interested to join. The

groups undergo a panel interview about the

topic.

Apprentice applications in the CVMIG can be

done anytime during the year. For details, inter-

ested juniors can visit the CVMIG lab at the third

floor of AECH or talk to the laboratory’s head, Dr.

Prospero Naval.

The Web Science Group, formerly the Internet

Technologies Group, deals with “the science of

the web”. Since the realm is too vast, the group

focuses on applications dedicated to health serv-

ices and education. Some educational re-

searches are the Electronic Portfolio and

Assessment (EPASA): a student-centric portfo-

lio, and Kinespell, an educational spelling game

for kinesthetic learners ages six to eight years

old.

The WSG accepts membership applications in-

dividually. The application process consists of fill-

ing up an application form and an interview.

Then, the passers can choose their pair. The stu-

dents can think of their own topic or if they can-

not think of any, the research group under Sir

Rommel Feria’s guidance can suggest topics to

them mostly about game-based learning or im-

mersive education.

Apprentice applicants can apply anytime during

the school year. Interested juniors and sopho-

mores can talk to Sir Feria for details. Appren-

tices administer hardware, setup servers,

download things, and test theses. They are also

encouraged to start reading theses if they are in-

terested in continuing some of the researches.

The Network and Distributed Systems Group

deals with grids, clusters and cloud computing,

peer-to-peer systems, agents and information

retrieval techniques, mobility and mobile net-

working, fault tolerance, adaptive QoS and web

service.

The Network and Distributed Systems Group ac-

cepts membership applications for thesis also by

group with a maximum of three people per

group. Informal interviews with the laboratory’s

head, Dr. Cedric Festin, are done during the first

few weeks of the first semester.

Application for apprenticeship can be done by

talking to Dr. Festin. Juniors can apply anytime

during the year.

The Computer Security Group currently handles

digital watermarking, encryption of multimedia,

information retrieval and multi-passwords. The

research group, under Ma’am Susan Festin,

deals with thesis topics related to computer se-

curity.

Seniors are screened individually. Then, they

can choose their own group mates – a maximum

of three members are allowed in a group.

Second year students in their second semester

and junior students can apply for apprenticeship

by talking to Ma’am Susan. Apprentices are ex-

pected to attend research meetings, observe the

thesis groups, and be involved in minor activi-

ties.

The Theoretical Computer Science Group, for-

merly Algorithms and Complexity Laboratory,

handles models of computation and complexity,

algorithms, designs and implementations, com-

binatorial networks and information technology

in education. This is the only group which does

not require an implementation or application out-

put. The group, however, requires a published

paper by the end of the year and also encour-

ages the students to join different conferences.

Other topics not belonging to any other research

group also stay in the Algorithms and Complexity

Laboratory.

Membership applications can be done individu-

ally or by pair. Students interested in discrete

mathematics (Math 157), algorithms and com-

plexity (CS 135) are encouraged to join the

group.

The group accepts apprentices that are in the

third year level or students who passed Math

157. Apprentices are expected to attend the

weekly research seminars and meetings.

The Scientific Computing Group is the newest

research group of the department. Formerly a

part of the Theoretical Computer Science Group,

it is headed by visiting professor, Dr. Vina Pearl

Bongolan. This group largely deals with the

study of mathematical models and numerical so-

lution techniques used to analyze and solve sci-

entific and enginnering problems.

Interested applicants for membership and ap-

prenticeship can talk to Dr. Bongolan.

Theses may still strike fear to students but with

the help of these research groups, the fear might

soon be diminished. Sir Mario Carreon strongly

suggests incoming seniors to think of topics as

soon as possible and to research about those

topics. Students can also talk to the research

groups’ advisers for pre-thesis advising. A little

preparation as early as now can really help in the

long run.

References:

http://www.engg.upd.edu.ph/%7Ecvmig

http://dcs.upd.edu.ph/lab/aclab/

http://dcs.upd.edu.ph/?page_id=6

We're also on Facebook, Plurk, and Twitter!Check out upparser.com now!

Most of us take for granted the facil-

ities and equipment that we have in

the Department. Some would even

go as far as complaining about

them.

But in a state university like UP,

where funds are usually very low

and even increasingly declining, one

doesn’t need to be a rocket—or

maybe even computer—scientist to

realize just how fortunate we are in

DCS when it comes to material re-

sources.

Aside from the number of faculty

members with graduate degrees

and the quality and quantity of re-

search publications produced, the

status of the facilities and equipment

of an educational institution is also a

key factor in determining the institu-

tion’s competence and overall pro-

ductivity. Such is the case when the

Commission on Higher Education

considers giving the honor of pro-

claiming a department or an institute

a Center of Excellence, of which the

DCS has been accorded in 2007.

Of course, the best form of educa-

tion can only take place in the right

environment with the right resources. And in a field like computer science,

where having the most relevant and the most up-to-date technology avail-

able is necessary and undoubtedly beneficial, there is a need to procure

such.

If you compare our resources with those of a certain private green-colored

university in Taft, we’re quite far behind. But compared with most univer-

sities in our third-world country, which do not have brand new computers

worth six million to speak of, or which do not even have projectors in every

room like we do, we definitely stand out. Sure, we do not have the state-

of-the-art facilities nor do we have the completest equipment available,

but we certainly have what other universities can only dream of. Largely

thanks to alumni donations, the Alumni Engineers Centennial Hall is one

of the most well-equipped and most highly developed academic buildings

in the nation today.

The challenge then lies for us, DCS students, to fully utilize such resources

and not let them go to waste. We’re not just talking about taking good care

of the equipment and using them for their intended use only (If web traffic

in the department was monitored, we’d bet 90% of it goes to social net-

working and other non-academic sites), although we highly encourage

that. We’re also talking about doing our best as a student, proving that all

the Department’s efforts in providing the best facilities and equipment it

can were worth it.

The next time you use a computer in one of the laboratories—whether it’s

an ME or your thesis project you’re working on—be thankful that the De-

partment is able to provide you with such and, even more importantly,

make sure that you are producing an output that will make the DCS proud.

After all, Spiderman taught us that “With great power comes great respon-

sibility”. To put it in context, with great resources come great responsibil-

ity.

*slogan used by Apple in the 1990’s

EDITORIAL

THE POWER TO BE YOUR BEST*Crystal Beatrice M. CamaraoEditor-in-Chief

Audrey C. GaraisAssociate Editor and Business Man-

ager

Gian Paolo V. SamsonNews Editor

Jase Nathaniel G. TiojancoFeatures Editor

Anna Andrina L. LobatonLiterary Editor

Jose Paolo M. SyTech Editor and Web Administrator

Arturo E. Lacanilao IIILayout Editor

Rona Riza M. GumiaJamie Lou R. PollosoJoven J. SebidoManaging Editors

Emerico H. AguilarGrace Ann B. AgustinRyan Kristofer I. AranaPaul Vincent S. ContrerasKristofer E. delas PeñasDaniela Marie L. DelgadoApryll B. LacandazoJanelle M. LagmayRanyel Bryan L. MaliwanagJosephine Ann Gabrielle S. OrtizJose Luis E. SantosAva Marie T. TanCassandra Leigh L. WangWriters

Dana Elisa G. NicolasJeanella Klarys E. PascualArtists

Pauline Ann N. PabloAnna Mae C. YapPhotographers

Philip E. ZunigaFaculty Adviser The UP Parser is the official student publication of the Department of Computer Science, UP Diliman

AUDREY GARAIS

BE IT TRAGIC OR COMEDIC

I’ll laugh at it, because that’s just

how I deal with it.

Deus Ex Machina

I stopped waiting for miracles to come because

in real life, you don’t really get your deus ex

machina. Probably miracles do exist, but not in

this context. No one is going to magically appear,

magically hand me my diploma and tell me that

I don’t have to do all of these things anymore. I

gave up hope a long time ago. Sadly, no hero

can save me from this mess that I just had to

take up.

Well, I guess no one else but me, that is.

Lahat naman nahihirapan eh. I guess it just de-

pends on the way we handle things (don’t even

mention time management). Everyone has a

way with dealing with their stuff, and I work on

my own pace as well. Each man to his own foot,

or so the quote goes.

I think everybody has a right to be stressed, to

complain and to feel depressed with whatever

they have to accomplish. Kahit itetext mo lang

ang crush mo para tanungin siya kung saang

papel isusulat yung probset, okay lang na ma-

pressure. What’s important is how you use this

kind of pressure to get you working. On lazy

days, it’s really hard to be productive; we push

everything until the last minute (especially on

long weekends so please just bring back our

Wednesdays, thankyouverymuch). Somehow

pressure works wonders and makes you type a

20-page paper in just one sitting. Basic principle:

kung magtatamad-tamaran ka, panindigan mo.

When you’re online and everybody else is on

Plurk or FB updating each other, it’s up to you to

mentally slap yourself just to stay focused.

For me, I guess I just have to remind myself what

I’m doing this for.

What am I doing this for again? Haha. To get a

decent job? Uhhh. This is exactly what’s sad

about the capitalist mindset. People are doing

what they’re doing to earn a decent living, and

not because it’s what they’ve always dreamed

of. They must’ve loved what they’re doing, but

making money became such a big deal that their

jobs dehumanized them.

It’s not really all about getting a decent job for

me. More often than not, I do it for my Dad who’s

been working so hard to keep us breathing until

now regardless if he’s annoying or not at times

(parents, lol). I think of my friends and the child-

ish pure promises we made to graduate to-

gether. Sometimes, it’s to compete with my

sister’s accomplishments and my younger

brother’s achievements (middle child syndrome

much?) Most of all, I try hard for myself. Hang in

there, Audrey. Self-actualization is on its way. :)

So even if my deus ex machina won’t ever show

up, I’ll keep on doing what I do. Kayod kung

kayod. I hope it gets better soon. I may be talking

about all these idealistic things, but that doesn’t

mean I’m not dying right now, haha. It gets hard,

but it’s all going to be worth it. Hey, you. I'm wait-

ing. Inspire me.

CRYSTAL BEATRICE CAMARAO

RANTOn Love and

Algorithm Design

Let's assume, at least for this article, that you

could find your soulmate through the different

algorithm design paradigms. (Yes, this is both a

geeky and cheesy article. YOU HAVE BEEN

WARNED. Brainiacs, you can criticize this all

you want, it’s just theoretical anyway. Besides,

it’s been a year since I took CS 135, so I have

an excuse for not being able to accurately re-

member all the concepts. Cynics, no one is forc-

ing you to read this. And you are free to laugh all

you want, but in the end I don't really care.)

What then is the best paradigm to use? Because

I think everyone agrees with me when I say that,

finding love--at least, the true kind--isn’t very dif-

ferent from solving a really difficult, frustrating

MP.

One could try the greedy method, but it isn’t a

particularly good technique to use in the context

of love. It means giving a certain amount of effort

to every person who shows the least bit of inter-

est, or every person who is something of minimal

interest to you. Not only is this a waste of time,

it’s a waste of emotions. Who wants to traverse

through so many “feasible, locally optimal”

nodes before finding the best path to their soul-

mate? It just isn’t practical. Especially since, in

most cases, the greedy method yields only ap-

proximations. When it comes to love, no one

wants to settle for less.

Divide-and-conquer isn’t any better. Having two

(or even more) lovers at the same time, playing

around with their hearts, and dumping the other

once you’ve decided who’s better, and then set-

tling until you find the next conquest is just irre-

sponsible, not to mention counter-productive.

Dynamic programming isn’t an option, either.

There’s no such thing as a formula when it

comes to love, although storing data about past

experiences helps. Besides, having a step-by-

step process you need to rigidly follow can get

dull and mundane.

And backtracking? Uhh. This is something I cer-

tainly think is a no-no. Although it works in data

structures, it rarely does in real life. Past is past,

and that's that.

So I guess all we’re left with is brute force, which,

at first look, is kind of insane. How does one suc-

cessfully look for his/her soulmate by means of

exhaustive search, when Earth has close to

seven billion souls? It will probably take forever-

-the time complexity must be something like

O(n!), or even worse. And it surely won’t be easy,

especially since it's going to take a lot of pa-

tience, and a great leap of faith that in spite of

the odds this problem is indeed solvable.

But isn't that the whole point of love? That no

matter how many variables (i.e. other sizzling hot

people) or what kind of parameters (i.e. differ-

ences in backgrounds, interests, and

whathaveyou), you still managed to find each

other in such a complex, crazy world, and fell in

love. That’s what, at least I think, is the true

essence of love.

No, brute force isn’t the most efficient paradigm

there is. In fact, most of the time, it’s the least ef-

ficient.

But when it comes to love, it is perhaps the most

optimal.

PHILIP ZUNIGA

*SPECIAL* ADVISER’SCOLUMN

Undefined

Let’s first welcome the first time readers of

Parser, this year’s batch of freshmen. Officially,

batch 2009 is the largest BS CS batch ever. The

Department accepted around 170 freshmen and

around 20 transferees and shiftees. This is part

of the Department’s aggressive effort to produce

more computer scientists, not only for the indus-

try, but also for research and academe. Increas-

ing the input is the easy part, but the harder part

(NP hard, perhaps?) is how we can make them

stay or how we can prevent them from being

kicked out. It is pointless to increase the input, if

at the end of the day, they will still not graduate

as BS CS students. We’ll just increase our so-

called “Mortality Rate”.

Every semester, dozens of BSCS students are

either removed from the program or leave the

program. They choose to leave because:

1) They find the program irrelevant with their ca-

reer plans.

2) They will be kicked out if they don’t leave.

3) They are confused.

4) Too many math subjects.

As a response, the Department, through the Stu-

dent Affairs Committee (SAC), is developing

ways on how to resolve these issues. The SAC

is now organizing various talks and seminars, all

aiming to make the students understand what

Computer Science is and what career options

BS CS students have. We are also assigning

batch advisers to the students, so that someone

from the faculty will be able to monitor the aca-

demic performance of the students. Faculty

members can now advise and help the students

who are in danger of violating the retention rules.

As for the number of Math units… we can’t do

anything about that.

iMacs everywhere.

Last month, research labs were lucky because

aside from getting high-end Acer desktop PCs,

the labs also received iMac desktop PCs. These

desktops were distributed to the various thesis

groups to aid them with their CS198/199 re-

search projects. And the Juniors are asking,

“How about us?”.

Actually, the research labs are open for member-

ships not only to seniors but also to juniors, and

yes even sophomores. You can apply as lab ap-

prentices and help the seniors with their re-

search projects. This will help you see the kind

of work that the seniors are doing, so that when

you enroll in CS 198… you won’t get SHOCKED.

Several senior students got SHOCKED the mo-

ment their advisers discussed their potential top-

ics. One senior even said, “It’s like

understanding a Chinese movie, but there’s no

subtitles.”

Aside from not getting SHOCKED, you can also

use the facilities (computers, mobile phone,

game consoles) of the lab for your school work.

And, you won’t need to compete for limited elec-

tric sockets and seats (I saw someone doing his

MP while standing) at the second floor. You can

plug your notebook inside the research labs.

Cool right?

How to join? Just ask the lab heads, or you can

also talk to the 4th year students who are also

members of the labs.

EMERICO AGUILAR

*SPECIAL*GUEST

COLUMNStudent Life Redux

Not so long ago, as a struggling college student

living on an allowance, I often got the question

asking me how I see myself five years from then.

Being the cocky person that I was, I thought that

was a no brainer. With my self-proclaimed sick

programming skills, my ego told me there’s no

way I won’t be able to enjoy continuous progress

that, in a few years time, people will be calling

me a successful young professional working his

way upwards the IT industry’s totem pole.

So my replies to this question, or, at least, how I

picture them, were always the same: an SUV –

make that an X5 since, as the old adage goes,

there’s nothing wrong with dreaming – toting cor-

porate hotshot/entrepreneur, living in his own

bachelor pad, with a bunch of time to spare for

his personal itineraries.

Fast forward to the present and the only thing

that have progressed is, uh, my age. Once

again, I’m a struggling student living on an al-

lowance. The X5 that I’m supposed to have is

still parked in a BMW dealer somewhere. In-

stead of a fancy bachelor pad, a room in a cam-

pus dormitory is serving as my humble abode. I

don’t even have much time for personal itiner-

aries; I use them mostly for my studies. In short,

I’m back to where I was.

So, what went wrong? Well, one may easily

point out that my goals are the main culprit –

they sound too idealistic, if not downright unre-

alistic (for someone in my shoes, that is). It does-

n’t help either that my programming skills are

sick only in the sense that they pale in compari-

son with others’. But it’s one thing to miss your

target, starting all over again is another story.

However, it is also something that I do not regret

doing.

I’ll leave my thoughts on why I am nowhere near

in achieving any of my earlier plans for another

day. For now, I’ll just focus on where I am, which

is not a bad place to be. In fact, it

is a great place to be.

Actually, I came from a different campus, so

being here is a new experience altogether. It

gives me the opportunity to learn more about my

other fields of interest, explore other stuffs, gain

new perceptions, and meet new friends. Plus,

it’s a chance for me to correct some of my previ-

ous mistakes as a student (note to self: stop pro-

crastinating). Most importantly, it’s an

opportunity to prepare myself once more for my

goals.

Five years from now, I’m no longer sure where

will I be. But for now, it doesn’t matter. For the

meantime, I’ll stop peering into future. For the

meantime, I’ll just focus on the present. And the

rule for living the present is quite simple: make

the most out of it.

Carpe diem.

JOINUP Parser

E-mail [email protected] for more info.

The UP Parser is the College of Engineering’s

first and foremost department-based publi-cation. Carrying the motto “Analyzing Life the

CS Way”, UP Parseraims to be the voice of the

Department of Computer Science (DCS), amediator between the department and student

body, as well as an outlet for skilled program-

mer-journalists.

We don't just write programs... We write!

ANNA ANDRINA LOBATON

BITESSlice

You sprint across the halls, late for your class (al-

though not really, right now you don't care any-

more, because you're suffering from a case of

jadedness so bad that it doesn't really make a

difference if you're late ten minutes or thirty), out

of breath and tripping over your feet. You stop,

stunned, bracing a hand against the wall, when

you read the announcement taped to the door.

Class is cancelled, it says, black letters on

smooth white, with no explanations whatsoever.

You hit yourself mentally for not checking your

mail before you left (as you are always bound to

do, bound to the internet as you are), and you

slump against the railing, laptop bag sliding

down your leg to the floor. You have a whole af-

ternoon free now (only not because you still

have a class at four), and you wonder what you

can do to kill the time.

And then you remember the reason why you're

panicking to reach the class in the first place;

you've been working on a machine problem all

throughout the past forty-five hours (three hours

of sleep is a blessing) and you're still not fin-

ished. You know the exam's next week and you

really do need to take it; you know if you stop

working on that problem, you'll never pick up the

motivation to start again unless it's freeze coding

the next day.

Damn, double damn, you wipe sweat off your

brow and claim a seat for yourself at one of

those multicoloured tables. Those unfamiliar

faces scatter a little as you open your laptop and

start working; it seems that the freshmen are

wary of that aura that you are giving off like so.

Useful now, useless later, when you realise your

vindinctive pleasure at making them squirm

fades in the light of pending submissions.

Algorithm design; you thought you'd never see

the day when you'd curse the subject. You sigh

and get to work - only not because a hand waves

in front of you and you smell a familiar scent waft

over to where you're sitting. You wish she won't

stand that close because god, god, god, you

can't concentrate because the butterflies in your

stomach are doing the samba.

"How's it going?" she asks, lifting the lid of her

own laptop and shifting the chair so that she can

sit properly. The legs screech against the floor

and your heart screeches against your ribcage.

"Done with the MP?"

"Which one?" You reply tiredly, mind mentally

reeling off all your subjects - and surprise, sur-

prise, all of them have impending deadlines.

She laughs, a warm, dry sound, and pats you

commiseratingly on the back. "Don't worry, you'll

get through fine. I was swamped the same way

last year, it was so - " and she curses an impres-

sive blue streak before smiling back at you so

radiantly that it's you who squirms.

You shouldn't fall for an upperclassman like this.

A year apart, who knew it could matter so much?

You close the lid of your laptop, and nonchalantly

(as much as you can, really) turn to face her, and

you ruffle her hair. She's once joked you could

pass for her little brother, and back then you

thought nothing of it, but now - "Have you al-

ready had lunch?"

She blinks a little, looking up from her own code,

and nods enthusiastically. "Yeah, we had lunch

delivered earlier."

"Mmn," you reply, sliding your laptop back into

your bag and swinging it over your shoulder.

"Okay. I'm going to go grab food, then."

She nods, already lost in her own little world of

deadlines and projects and that dreaded thesis

- and as you go down the stairs, you can't help

but wonder why she's not in her lab, why she'd

been there with you. You have an epiphany of

sorts, a hypothesis that works out - but when you

dash back up the stairs she's gone.

KATHRYN KIMBERLY MALIJAN

SCORPIONROSESA Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there lived a boy with his

mother in the heart of the woods.

The boy was as thin as the thinnest shrub that

ever sprouted in the woods, and he was so frail

and delicate. But the boy had the most angelic

face one could ever have, for he had eyes as

beautiful as a blooming rosebud, and a smile as

a warm as the summer sun.

He loved musical instruments. He could play any

instrument as marvelous as a genius would. And

he also possessed a voice so enchanting that all

the birds in the forest gathered near him when-

ever he hums a tune.

His mother was the first person that he would

look for when he opened his eyes in the morn-

ing, then kiss her the sweetest kiss a loving son

could ever give to his mother. Then he would run

in the woods to find and gather the freshest flow-

ers and bring it to her while she prepared their

breakfast. He wouldn’t touch his food unless she

joined him and sat beside him in the table. And

he would never close his eyes even if the moon

started peeping through the window unless his

mother told him the most wonderful tale that she

could ever think of.

When he was of the right age, they left the

woods and moved to a house near the school.

There he saw a lot of kids like him, and thought

that going out with them is surely fun and excit-

ing.

And so he started to spend more time doing

other things: playing with friends, going around

the town and discovering the hidden sights

within the place.

Mother patiently waited for Son to come home

and spend time with her. She always prepared

the most delicious food, and placed the softest

pillow she ever found on his bed. She even

bought him a new guitar so he could hear him

sing his songs again.

But hours grew to days, and days grew to

months. The boy would wake up, take his things

and go out without even saying goodbye. He did-

n’t look for her in the morning, nor did he bring

her sweet flowers, and he didn’t need the tall

tales to make him sleep at night ever again.

Mother asked Son what’s wrong. But the boy

only stared at her and told her nothing.

Mother insisted, but Son only said that he’s okay.

She asked him if she ever did something that he

didn’t like.

The boy only said “No…it’s me…”

So finally she asked the boy if he would want her

to leave him alone.

Son answered, “I don’t know. I’m not sure…”

She asked him again.

And the boy said “YES…”

And so she left, and took with her the memory

of his songs and smile, and the pain brought

by the denial of truth.

There ends the tale.

And so no matter how well you take care of peo-

ple you love, sometimes they have their own

reasons why they would just leave you and let

things be left unclear. Yes, it’s hard to act that

you don’t care, but you just have to. If they can

never have the guts to tell you what the real

problem is, don’t force them. You’ve done your

part, let them do theirs…

GIAN PAOLO SAMSON

GOINGEXPOSITORY

(Because I’m no essay writer)

First Love Never Dies

It was only three and a half years ago when I en-

tered the Engineering Theatre to attend the

CS4CS orientation for first-year CS students.

Back in 2006, the Department was still residing

in its former home in Melchor Hall, where it oc-

cupied the left-wing corridor beside the Chemical

Engineering Department.

Fresh from high school, I hardly knew anything

about the University or the colorful college life

that was about to unfold. All I knew back then

was that we had been required by my CS 11 pro-

fessor to attend the orientation and that was it.

As always, the members of the CS Network

were present during the orientation to introduce

themselves and talk about their upcoming activ-

ities.

One of them was the UP Parser. I sat there lis-

tening as then-Parser EIC Joebet del Rosario

talked about the student paper and its role in the

CS community. I had been some sort of “semi-

journalist” back in high school, so I was positively

surprised to find out that there was actually a

segment in the science-inclined student popula-

tion of the DCS interested in journalism.

Yes, it was during that fateful day in June 2006

when I promised myself that someday I would

enter the UP Parser as one of its staff members

and help it continue its role as a medium of in-

formation dissemination in the Department. Dur-

ing that time, however, I thought I was too young

to join, so I indefinitely postponed my applica-

tion.

It was less than year later, just before the end of

freshman year, when I felt that the time was ripe

to test what I was made of. So I signed up for the

editorial exams and applied as a news editor.

The results came out and I found out that I got

the position.

Cliché as it may sound, words were not enough

to express the happiness that I felt when I saw

the results. I seriously didn’t think I could get it..

But life in the Parser wasn’t always that happy.

The rest of the staff and I did struggle at one

point or another just to make sure that the pub-

lication continued ticking. A number of sacri-

fices—though a lot of them are both funny and

silly—had to be made. For one, the Parser was

the reason why I had to go on the first school-re-

lated overnight stay of my life. I had to do that

just so we could submit a soft copy of an issue

to the press on time. I swear I had some difficulty

sleeping that night.

In my nearly three years of stay in the Parser (I

probably hold the record as the editor who

stayed in the same position for the longest time

in the paper’s history haha), I was able to see

well how leaders could affect the products of

their respective teams. Some people say that the

job of a leader is easy because it is largely about

making decisions, but it is actually that respon-

sibility that makes the job all the more difficult.

As a leader, one has to put his/her heart into

what he/she is doing, because the rest of team

can see through those veiled actions, and that

just might make or break the performance of the

team as a whole.

But I digress.

As an ending to this piece, let me just say that

the Parser will always be my first love here in UP.

We all know what they say about a first love. It

never dies. It will always linger. And though I

admit that I sometimes put it behind other extra-

curricular pursuits, I will continue to become its

trusty news editor until the announcement of my

successor this March. Lol.

JASE NATHANIEL TIOJANCO

GALORE MUCHSimplicity

Money makes the world go around. Well, at least

I thought so.

Has it ever crossed your mind why most people

clamour financial prosperity? Why is it that hav-

ing numerous material possessions equate to

the sense of stability for some? Those are just

some questions that have been in my mind for

quite some time.

Ever since my siblings and I were young, it has

been instilled to us explicitly and implicitly that

we should work hard to gain financial prosperity.

Our dad would never fail to remind us to perform

excellently in school so that we would become

successful in the future. He would always bring

us to our boutiques in the different parts of the

country just to show us how important it is to

have a lucrative livelihood. We were raised in a

household wherein luxuries were set as a norm,

making us think that those luxuries were neces-

sary for a comfortable life. Most anything that we

wanted was given to us by our parents without

hesitation.

Everything was doing well and my dad was

pretty much successful in programming our

minds to strive for extravagance. But as the say-

ing goes, “All good things come to an end.”

Due to some bad business strategies mixed with

tightened consumer spending, our shops and

boutiques closed one by one. From our shops in

Baguio to our boutique in Cebu, everything went

down. We didn’t have any other source of in-

come and what has been left of our family’s

wealth was being used up at a rapid pace. All of

the luxuries we were accustomed to had to be

stopped.

I was devastated. All the things I was used to

enjoy were gone. We had to let go of our house-

hold helpers, so I had to learn everything they

did for me so I could do it for myself. We had to

say goodbye to our drivers, so I had to learn how

to commute. We had to cut our expenditures,

which meant no more new things and reduced

use of paid services.

I was like stripped of everything I had. I felt like

the most unfortunate person on the planet. I’d

have sleepless nights just because we cannot

use the air-con. I’d skip meals simply because I

did not like the food on the table.

I slowly and painfully got used to it, but the desire

to achieve financial prosperity is now greater

than ever. I badly wanted to go back to how we

lived our lives before. I would spend the day

dreaming about owning the latest gadgets or

having the trendiest of clothes. I did my best to

excel in school because I wanted to become rich

some day.

I was blinded by that vision. Whenever I failed

an exam, I would instantly be depressed thinking

that I’d end up as a beggar on the streets. I

didn’t enjoy anything that I was doing; everything

caused a huge deal of stress. Simply put, I was

sad.

Thankfully, I am a UP student. No, I would not

be glorifying our university because of its excel-

lent standards; there’s no point in obviating the

obvious. The beauty of being in UP is that I was

exposed to a wide array of people with varying

lifestyles. I got to meet people from the different

ends of the spectrum. My interactions with them

made me realize that life isn’t just about material

things. Life can be about love, leadership, friend-

ship, and a whole lot more.

I changed my focus from attaining financial pros-

perity to learning life lessons that would make

me a better person. The desire to become

wealthy has slowly faded. I actually don’t mind

anymore the fact that I have to do quite a lot of

chores. Moments spent with my family or friends

are enough to make me happy. True enough,

simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

We're looking for partners in reaching out to UP DCS community!E-mail us at [email protected] and we'll send you a copy of sponsorship packages available.

By Josephine Ann Gabrielle Ortiz

It may be safe to say that a great number of CS students are part of the continuously growing blog-

ging community. Some simply advertise stuff on their blogs, while some share their thoughts and

experiences; some even express themselves in photos, works of art, or perhaps literature. Blogging

can take on many different forms. Lately, it can be done so easily—even with just your phones. Truly,

as technology furthers in our lives, everyone is connected and updated through blogging.

As you may have inferred, blogging enables you to write about anything you want—it can be about

how you tripped on the way up to the CS building, acing your EEE 8 exam, or about seeing your

crush in your English 1 class—but does this mean that you are allowed to do so?

Well, setting rules about blogging can be quite hard. As there aren’t any laws about it (in the Philip-

pines, at least) yet so basically, we CAN write about everything we may ever want. But it won’t hurt

to perhaps think about what you’re going to write about first. Take a certain student’s blog, I’m sure

you’ve all heard about Patrick Sicat (or well-known as “Paytrick”) — the Lasallista-turned-Iskolar-

ng-Bayan who wrote a certain journal entry about his latest experiences upon transferring in UP.

Another blog to consider would be the “cat-killer’s blog” – a UP student who blogged about killing a

cat in NIP. I tried searching the internet for both blogs but apparently, they have already been deleted.

Anyway, I’d rather not expound on this and just let you do a little researching yourself, dear reader,

as I might forget that I’m writing for an unbiased newsletter. Hehe.

As you can see, blogs like that were also about experiences and feelings of people like us—but the

thing they forgot while they were happily blogging was that these experiences and feelings of theirs

MIGHT be able to offend other people. These blogs MIGHT just be able to create a negative effect

on other people that may also be detrimental to them. You see, it all comes down to freedom of

speech and its so-called limits. Think about it. Yes, we’re all entitled to say whatever we want but be

sure to be prepared for any consequence that saying those things might entail. The only “limit”

(though unofficial) that we should have would be respecting other’s values and rights—it is only right

to protect others’ beliefs if we want to protect ours too, right? So blog away, but be sure to keep in

check how other people may view your blog if you don’t want to be end up like them.

Blogging 101

Heroes of Newerth: A ReviewBy Jose Paolo Sy

If you're an avid fan of Defense of the Ancients (DotA in Warcraft), then you might want to try out

Heroes of Newerth. Heroes of Newerth (HoN) is a real-time strategy game in which each team's

goal is to destroy the enemy team's mother tower (with obstacles in between and heroes to fight

against, of course). In short, HoN is pretty much like DotA, with a HoN’s own personal touch. Right

now, the game is under beta testing (and you can be part of it), and for now only supports online

play (no local play, yet!). Nevertheless, the game does not fail to awe its playing audience.

Here are some stuff I noticed while playing HoN:

1. HoN beats DotA on graphics hands-down. See for yourself.

2. And since it's online, you don't need Garena. HoN will list rooms for you.

3. It serves as a chat client in-game and out -- an essential feature in cooperative gaming.

4. Some characters basically have the same abilities, and amount of damage even, as with DotA.

They just changed the name of the character, and the description of the moves…

5. …And items too. (Ex. Wingbow, the HoN equivalent of DotA's butterfly.)

6. But HoN has its own characters whose skills are not adapted from DotA.

7. And it has its own items too.

8. Keyboard shortcuts to using skills and buying items are generic. Instead of having to adapt to dif-

ferent keys per character in DotA, HoN uses the Q-W-E-R keys. Q is used for the first skill, W for

the second, and so on.

9. HoN lists recipes of items which require, uhh... recipes. Say goodbye to store-to-store hunting

when creating a non-basic item.

10. Game types are Normal, Random Draft, Single Draft, and Deathmatch. You can choose from

three maps: Forests of Caldavar (the map very similar to DotA), Darkwood Vale 3v3, and Watch-

tower. You can also practice; just choose 'Practice' when selecting a server. Moreover, you can clas-

sify a game to Noobs Only, Noobs Allowed, and Pro. Team size ranges from one-versus-one to

five-versus-five. You can have referees and spectators, too.

The Battle of(free) IDEs:Eclipse vsNetBeansBy Grace Anne Agustin

Upon graduating from Notepad, some compilers,

and the command prompt, Integrated Develop-

ment Environments (or IDEs) have been, for

most of us, allies through bloody battles against

machine exercises and machine problems. Most

CS students would either say NetBeans,

Eclipse, or both. But which is better? Which is

faster? Which is cooler? To answer these ques-

tions, we'll put both IDEs in a head-to-head

match, testing the skills and capabilities of each.

In the violet corner, on its latest release, and

“weighing” 161 MB for Mac Cocoa 64bit and 162

MB for Windows, Eclipse Galileo! And in the blue

corner, “weighing" 158 MB for Mac and a whop-

ping 238 MB for Windows, NetBeans in its latest

release, 6.7!

*ting ting ting* Fight!

Round 1: Download and Installation

It's a slow start. Downloading takes about thirty

minutes to an hour. Eclipses wins on this one

though. Downloading is (obviously) faster with

Eclipse, and Eclipse fires a good punch by hav-

ing no installation required -- just unzip and

you're good to go.

Round 2: User-friendliness

For this round, I devised a “very unique” and

“very creative” way to test user-friendliness. I

created a "Hello world" program in Java, and ran

it while pretending to be a new user. Ha!

The first challenge is to create a new project. For

NetBeans, that would be “File > New Project”,

and by default, this creates a new Java class file

(main) with the new project. The main class was

there, the main method was there, and I was

ready to type in the code. Eclipse, however, re-

quired an extra step of clicking “New File” to cre-

ate the first Java class file.

As for first impression, both corners' icons in the

toolbar were intuitive. However, NetBeans gets

an extra point for having fewer buttons, which

means I was able to find the the run-button

faster. AND Eclipse also gets an extra point for

having more buttons, which means more “one-

click-aways”.

Opened windows, however, are intimidating, es-

pecially if the user is used to Notepad. But this

is just a matter of getting used to.

Round 3: Online Sources (Tutorials and how-tos)

Google results for tutorials and how-tos would

be the coaches, trainers, or whatever for these

IDEs, and depending on the information they

contain, they can either help us or be the reason

for lack of sleep.

For this round, a quick fight of Googling with the

keywords "<IDE name> tutorial" and "<IDE

name> how to", and checking the first hit will de-

termine which is more useful.

On the time of writing, the first hit for both key-

words were the same for Eclipse. The Eclipse-

tutorial, which can be found at

https://eclipse-tutorial.dev.java.net/ has a de-

tailed, although a little outdated, step-by-step

guide on creating a new project. It also tackled

other topics like importing existing codes and in-

stalling plug-ins.

In the other corner, NetBeans' results offered

videos and flash alternatives in the first hit of

"how to" (http://www.netbeans.org/

kb/55/flash.html) and a quick start in the tutorial's

first hit (http://java.sun.com/developer/online-

Training/tools/netbeans_part1/).

NetBeans offered more variety in terms of type

of media, but Eclipse offered more information -

- plus for Eclipse.

Round 4: Speed

When you just realized that your MP is due in

less than 2 hours, every minute, every second,

and even every millisecond counts. Start-up

times for both IDEs feels like a millennia com-

pared to Notepad. And to make it more official,

a referee will be joining us: AppTimer

(http://www.passmark.com/products/apptimer.ht

m) is an application start-up timer for Windows.

After a fresh reboot with almost no other appli-

cation running except for the timer, NetBeans

start-up time was at least, on average, 12 times

slower than that of Eclipse at around 7.5s*, com-

pared with Eclipse's .6s*. These results were

only until the “Starting of Modules” for NetBeans

and the loading screen of Eclipse. If timed until

the start page/ start screen, Eclipse would take

continued on page 17

The GreatDSL ReviewBy Paul Vincent Contreras

The internet is our door to the information super-

highway. Without the internet, our access to the

world of Computer Science is not in its entirety.

Here in the Philippines, there are a lot of ways

on how we can connect to the internet. We have

DSL, cable internet, HSDPA, and wireless fixed

to name a few.

This guide is about the comparison of the current

DSL internet service providers in the metro. We

will not give you our choice of ISP, but rather we

will let you decide. Our candidates are the three

big fixed line telephone service providers in the

metro, Bayan, Globe and PLDT.

Globe Broadband

This ISP was previously known as Globelines.

Globelines is the traditional phone division of

Globe, and is the one responsible for providing

Globe’s DSL service.

Coverage

If you’re residing in Makati, Mandaluyong,

Muntinlupa, Pasay, Las Piñas, Parañaque,

Taguig City, Pateros, San Juan, Pasig, and Que-

zon City, the chances of having DSL by Globe is

high.

Packages

For residential subscribers, Globe offers 1 Mbps

and 2 Mbps DSL packages. The 1 Mbps pack-

age costs Php 995. You can get the 1 Mbps

package without subscribing to a traditional tele-

phone line. To get higher packages, you need to

get a phone subscription (+300 to your phone

subscription).

Good and Bad Side

HTTP access in this ISP is really fast. But if

you’re into file sharing applications, such as tor-

rent and Gnutella, think again. Globe Broadband

is not for torrent and Gnutella. Globe Broadband

will only give you 20% of your bandwidth or

download speed for the said applications be-

cause they have a fair usage policy.

Customer service is available round the clock.

Their hotlines are equipped with friendly cus-

tomer service agents.

Bayan DSL

Looks like Lola Techie is on the loose. Bayan

Telecommunications has become popular nowa-

days because of their Lola Techie campaign.

Coverage

If you are living in Quezon City, Malabon City,

Valenzuela City, and Manila, the chances of hav-

ing a Bayan DSL facility in your area is high.

Packages

In areas serviceable by Bayan in Metro Manila,

the 768 Kbps package costs Php 899. This in-

ternet connection is “burstable” up to 1280 Kbps.

continued on page 17

The Great... (from page 16)

Good and Bad Side

If you’re a Bayan subscriber, you’re the lucky

one. Besides that, Bayan guarantees that all its

internet facilities are working. They’ll even pay

you P100 if they cannot be fix your internet con-

nection problems in 24 hours.

Customer service is available around the clock.

The problem with Bayan is that its DSL service

is available only in select cities in the metro.

PLDT

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Com-

pany, of course, ay hindi magpapahuli. As the

largest telephone company in the country, it

boasts itself in providing fast and unlimited inter-

net connection.

Coverage

If you’re living anywhere in Metro Manila, the

question now is “Can I avail the Quick Installa-

tion Kit in my area?” PLDT covers the entire

metro and there’s no doubt about it.

Packages

PLDT offers the greatest number of packages.

Regular DSL packages include a 1 Mbps, 2

Mbps, and 3 Mbps connection. They also offer

landline and DSL internet connection packages,

which include a 384 Kbps or 512 Kbps connec-

tion.

Good and Bad Side

There are some forums on the internet saying

that sometimes, you get more out from PLDT.

There are several forum users reporting that

their bundled DSL internet and landline package

don't give him the published speeds. Instead,

they get more. For example, someone posted

about how he got an 8 Mbps connection from a

mere 384 Kbps subscription.

Customer service, however, is available only

during office hours.

The Battle... (continued from page 15)

around 4s and NetBeans would take around

41s. Obviously, Eclipse wins. As for compiling

Java code, I didn't see any significant difference.

*on Intel Pentium Dual CPU 2 Ghz and 2GB of

RAM running Windows XP

Round 5: Plug-ins

And finally, extensibility through the use of plug-

ins. Eclipse may have more plug-ins than Net-

Beans, but the most popular plug-ins are

available for both. Besides, it’s only a matter of

time until some third party creates more.

In conclusion, Eclipse wins by being faster (in-

stallation, start-up, and download) than Net-

Beans, but otherwise they're almost the same.

PARSEYOU

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Manila, Philippines, September 23, 2009 - Orange & Bronze Software Labs Inc.

sponsored the first issue of UP Parser--the official student publication of the De-

partment of Computer Science in UP Diliman. Photo shows UP Parser's editor-

in-chief, Crystal Beatrice Camarao, and Orange & Bronze CEO Calen Legaspi

during the contract signing.

Orange & Bronze Software Labs Inc. is the first Philippine-based SpringSource

partner, backed with a team of innovators in enterprise software development.

The company mainly leverages on its expertise in Java, specializing in Spring

and Hibernate, as well as Python and Django.

Aside from building and maintaining strong business ties with its local and for-

eign clients, Orange & Bronze is also an active participant in spreading new IT

innovations within the academic community and a fervent advocate of the latest

software development technologies. Orange & Bronze hosted several other

seminars in partnership with the UP IT society such as the Groovy and Grails

Seminar, Spring Roo Talk, Test Driven Development Seminar and the Google

App Engine Seminar. These events were facilitated by Orange & Bronze's very

own seasoned software architects and software engineers.

As the company's culture thrives on regular knowledge-sharing sessions, Or-

ange & Bronze is also the official sponsor of the Philippine Groovy Users Group,

the Filipino Java Users Group, and the Google Technology Users Group Philipp

-ines. The company is also an elected member of the Philippine Software Indus-

try Association (PSIA).

Orange & Bronze Sponsors UP Parser's First 2009 Issue

GottliebOnly a handful of years do my petite hands hold

But Anna's leaves in Love's book have already been halfway unfold'd

Meister, not only do you grace the air with delicious melodies

You grace the scarlet corset that so tightly embraces me

It was that very night...

I serenaded the gods with my plea of freedom

To bring me back to the Queen's nocturnal kingdom

Hear me, Mein Liebster, see Hathor descend

Let my star, if only somehow, make you comprehend...

And it was that very year...

I refuse to set free the tunes that have been waiting to be sung

For only through your pieces can my chains be undone

Even if only seven chances had been given

Permit these spare notes to echo far into Heaven

Ages, in your music you shall retain your beauty

Years, in loneliness, it shall deform the mortal me

But my love for you shall grow and will still stand to see

Until I could be in your presence, with the Lord, eternally.

Sonnet I: Antipodal Enchantment

I've yet to feel the vernal refreshment

The mem'ries of it, how they flit around

The airy sensation, in it I drown

Primal encounter's such an amazement

What destruction is found in times that come forth

Thy distinct apparition halts my beat

Temp'rature drops to a cold winter-sweet

With the likeness of the blizzards of pole's North

From its frozen cage which locks me tight within

Carry me into thy palms of warm fall

As I hold by thy summer's enthrall

And be it to leave me where I have been

KEYSBy E.A. Taopih

I long to be loved

By another, please!

I pray for this

Upon my knees

I wish to find

With ample ease

A wondrous lover

That I'll appease

Here comes a young

Delightful tease

Whose love I rightly

Ought to seize

I saw her pass

The summer breeze

Which made her sway

In time with trees

She looked at me

And made me freeze

Now by her will

My soul agrees

But then I gave

My heart a squeeze

She tainted it

With black disease

To gain the love

Of another? Please!

I have not hopes

As high as these

I am a rational person. My head dictates what I do. I've been

burned already by these so-called fires of the heart (a fitting

metaphor, unfortunately); the memory has served me well. I fall

fast and hard and hit the bottom with the force of a falling star.

Brilliant and shining and crumbling in its final moments.

Falling in love feels like flying until you hit the ground.

However I make a mistake time and again; whenever I spend time

with one person, if I spend the most of my waking hours with her,

if she becomes a constant companion, a friend, a close platonic

friend, I tend to fall like the world falling.

Rationality has never helped me there. The great descent is ex-

hilarating yet unfortunate; unforgettable but fleeting.

You see now, there she is, speaking to the others with a confi-

dence and charisma I cannot muster. She catches my eye, a fleet-

ing glimpse, and it is enough to send my heart into a frantic

staccato. She has no idea what it means to me, that brief contact,

and I take it and lock it in my heart.

I know I have no chance with her, through banter and teasing and

conversation I have pieced together an admiration that she pur-

sues to no avail.

---

I am, contrary to stereotype and popular opinion, a rational per-

son. Impulsiveness holds no part in my decisions, although I make

sure people see me as such. My sister once told me I could give

a Bond villain a run for his money for the lengths I would go to

hide what I feel.

Wearing my heart on my sleeve has done me nothing but

heartache; burned by the rejection of the worst kind: indifference.

How would you feel if you lowered your pride, confessed your

heart and offered it up on a silver platter and laughter is your com-

pensation? Harlequinade, they call me, weaving in and out of so-

ciety with no permanency, never taken seriously.

And yet no matter how hard I tell myself that I will stop, stop, stop

this pointless mooning over my polar opposite, I fall multiple times.

You see now, there he is, talking in the shaded corner, center of

his own little world. Loud and laughing I look over, and we look

into each other's eyes, and then away as if it's nothing (because

it is nothing, nothing at all not like the world falling) and I laugh for

the sake of laughing (because he saw me and I saw him and it's

enough to know that I can make him smile).

I want so badly to tell him but it's the one thing I can't say to his

face. Everyone knows and he knows but he will not take it seri-

ously, and it breaks - it breaks my - what am I saying, this isn't

love, this is - and I am jealous, I admit, jealous of this one lucky

girl that he admires so but would not speak of, the one he speaks

with (even though I speak with him every single day and that's

one of my life's constants and heaven knows how I survived be-

fore I met him), the one -

As long as I can see him smile, I would not mind. This is real life,

not my fairytale, not my happy ending.

But God, what would I give to keep living in this dream.

---

"How would you know?"

I turned to her and raised an eyebrow. "Know what?"

She sighed and her fingers swept in an aggravated crescendo

across the keyboard. "I lost track of the line I was debugging. All

I know is that I'm on a hundred-something..."

Nudgind her aside I took a peek at her screen. "What the hell are

you coding a hundred lines of assembly code for?"

She just shrugged as I scrolled through. It was getting rather late

and the building was closing soon; and we were both here,

sturggling to get our MP into some semblance of done. Unfortu-

nately the both of us were procrastinators and 'some semblance

of done' was usually defined by pseudocode on paper or bits and

pieces of workable code floating around in our heads but have

absolutely no compatibility once coded together in an editor.

'Pseudocode' on paper was then usually defined - let us not delve

deeper because that'll become recursion.

I couldn't make heads nor tails of what she had typed, although

my head was telling me that I was missing something rather im-

portant. Groundbreaking, even. Of course, it tended to do that a

lot whenever it was about her, since my brain had the traitorous

tendency to think that she was the best thing since sliced bread -

or constant time complexity, or even the godsend that is Eclipse,

same difference.

My heart sniggered at this and let out a victory cry. Center of logic

and it was now under its hormonal jurisdiction, even though some-

where in the neural system neurons were holding a conference

and vehemently debating on the merits of falling in love.

I realised she was staring at me staring at her as she stared back.

"What."

"Uh," I replied intelligently.

She gave me this look that usually meant 'What the hell are you

on' but my tired and short-circuited brain (helped along by that of-

fending heart-thing) interpreted it as 'Are you okay? You need

sleep. Go home and go to bed and don't get up for at least eight

hours - '

"Is there something on my face?"

Ugh why can she not be romantic for once and go along with what

I am thinking and - hold it, brain, enough thoughts like that -

I forced myself to blink, and think of a clever retort, but all I did

was blurt out, "God, I need sleep."

I think she smiled, which was a good thing in my book; never mind

if it was because of me - in fact, it would be a good thing if it was

because of me - "That was very...random," she remarked, ducking

her head next to mine, and I was still wondering if that qualified

as a smile or not. "Well?"

"Well what?"

She sighed exasperatedly and continued in a tone that suggested

she was lecturing a particularly slow five-year old child. "I think

we're done for tonight. Come on," she said brightly, lightly slapping

me upside the head, "Let's pack this up and go home."

---

"How would you know?"

Why yes, indeed, how would you know? It was a very simple

question that could go both ways. Knowing him, though, as the

densest human being on this good green earth, it would swing to-

wards the logical route.

"Know what?"

I wanted to smash his head against the table. "I lost track of the

line I was debugging," I answered, pointing to the morosely blink-

ing cursor and tracing a line down the debugger window. "All I

know is that I'm on a hundred-something..."

As expected he did the equivalent of barging into a locked room:

he instantly took hold of my laptop and faced it towards him, rub-

bing his chin in a vaguely aggravated fashion. "What the hell are

you coding a hundred lines of assembly code for?" (TBC)

MP Soliloquy

Drops of iron gall on paper it bled. And

slowly dispersed through the time-locked

fence. Jeanella Klarys Pascual

GlanceIt's just one quick glance too many.

"...I can guarantee you'll be dismissed thirty min-

utes earlier, and..."

"Hey! What're you doing here?"

"Our prof dismissed us early, said something

about being too lazy to teach today--"

She blinks, and blinks some more, twirling a pen-

cil around slim fingers automatically. It's an un-

fortunate habit, resulting in countless incidents

of broken lead and embarassing moments

(some of which happen to happen in the pres-

ence of--)

She blinks again, and brown eyes meet similarly-

coloured ones, flashing behind eyeglasses.

It's just a split second.

She tries to paste a nonchalant look on her face,

and it works; he continues walking as if she was

a stranger. A stranger who he'd caught glancing

one time too many.

Luckily her cousin doesn't notice her momentary

lapse of poise and continues on with her one-

sided conversation. She clears her head just

enough to smooth everything over. From the cor-

ner of her eye she peers down as he goes down

the stairs, spiky tufts of black and brown clearly

distinguishable.

She restrains herself from saying outright that

she wants to go and she wants to go now be-

cause she wants to see where he goes and--

"Where are you going next?" She manages to

say, nudging her long-haired cousin.

Jill starts walking. She smiles. Although Carla's

liking (it didn't even start out as a liking, Billy and

Joseph started teasing her so much about the

spiky-haired teen that she actually, eventually,

came to like him) for Andrew (Drew as his close

friends called him) had been brought up many

times, Jill never seems to catch on. "Chem 16,"

she says in a way of an explanation. "Pavilion I."

"Oh. Well, let's go then."

They tread the stairs, and she subconsciously

starts looking for him. She sees Jay (and inter-

nally smiles; she knows for a fact that Jay and

(An)Drew are roomates so naturally they'd be to-

gether) at the far end of the second floor, and

she tries to wave. For some reason Jay man-

ages to miss her, and she lowers her hand

quickly in embarassment. She starts a conver-

sation with the smiling girl beside her.

"Um, when's your next long exam?" She says

awkwardly, watching her feet as they walk the

corridors of the second floor.

"I have no idea; it looks like our prof doesn't even

know if we're going to finish the stupid book,

and..."

Suddenly everything is tuned out once more. As

they round the corner leading down to the first

floor, the spiky-haired boy (man) comes into

view, having just thrown something into the near-

est bin.

Their eyes lock once more, and before she can

even realize what she's doing, she doesn't break

the contact.

It's like a magnetic pull between them; there's

something deep in his dark brown eyes, some-

thing that just doesn't want to let her go.

He blinks, and looks away. She blushes, but she

can't keep her eyes from straying to the side and

searching his face for a telltale blush.

A faint rosy blush settles over the bridge of his

nose.

She giggles inwardly, a feat that she keeps quiet

admirably: maybe, just maybe, Andrew...

"...something about the finals and I can't wait for

this semester to end!" She holds on to Jill's voice

and pulls herself back into reality, back into

treading the dreary halls of this building, back

into worrying about the next test and next pres-

entation and her life in general.

But somehow, she thinks, as a smile threatens

to tug at her lips, the world seems a little brighter.

xxx

"Hey," Joseph starts, nudging her shoulder. "Is it

just me, or is it that your normally-ice-cold-guy

looks kinda...happy?"

She blushes, feeling the heat rush to her face as

she shoves the teen roughly. "Hello? He is not

my guy, thank you very much!" she says loudly,

rolling her eyes.

She doesn't have any idea why she said that just

as when they walk past Andrew and his circle of

friends. She doesn't have any idea why she

raised her voice just so. She doesn't have any

idea why she wants him to hear.

She bites her lip, fiddling with her university key-

chain as they tread the sea of people that is the

cafeteria. No matter how she wanted to deny it,

yes, Joseph was right: the Chemical Engineering

student did look happier than usual. For the past

few days she had been spotting him laughing,

carefree and genuine. A smile seems always to

be around, lurking at the corners of his mouth.

She couldn't help but associate it with the fact

that she had seen him smiling every time after

they had locked eye contact.

In fact, his face was brighter as he talked ani-

matedly with his friends, who were standing

around him, looking slightly awed, probably at

the sudden change in personality.

They had exchanged introductions during the

first day of enrollment. Manual registration had

reared its ugly head, and half-day-long waiting

in line wasn't as uncommon as one might think.

However, she was lucky; since she was one of

the few people enrolled in her course, Multime-

dia Arts, their line wasn't as long as the others.

It was here that she learned that his name was

Andrew.

He had smiled at her that day, a smile that had

seared itself into her memory.

After that, however, he had proved himself to be

one of those people who are nice at first, but for-

get your name in a split second. She swore that

she would forget him too, but sometimes, the

harder the mind tries to forget, the harder the

heart tries to hold on.

The heart, how did the heart get dragged into

this?

How did she fall for someone so unreachable

and cold?

Every so often, a glance would be thrown, a

quick peek over her shoulder, a shy roving of

hopeful brown eyes. (After which a very irritated

long-haired cousin would roll her eyes and sigh

at their 'blindness' for each other.) They had an

uncanny way of meeting, of being in the same

common area.

She wonders if these are pure coincidence, or if

somehow, for some reason, even with the small-

est sliver of hope, that the encounters have a

reason behind them.

"Carla," Jill's quick jab at her ribs, once again,

pulls her back into reality. "Let me see your

classcards,"she pleads, knowing full well that

given Carla's obsession with less-than-perfect

grades, it would take more than a single request.

"Mmah, wait," she searches through her bag dis-

tractedly at first, then in worry as she realizes

that the record of her grades isn't there, the vital

piece of paper that would enable her to continue

her studies for another year. "Oh. Oh no, I

must've left it in the Registrar's Office!" She zips

her bag closed hurriedly. "I'll dash back!"

Somewhere in the back of her head she giggles,

even if her rational voice is starting to panic. She

is going to pass by the place where Andrew is,

and that is more than enough to send her stom-

ach exploding in millions of silver butterflies.

She starts to sprint back, bag close to her chest,

mind spinning with a face that has haunted her

dreams for almost a year.

She runs past the place, determined not to look.

Determined not to blush, determined not to show

that she cares for him. Even if she just feels

something behind his eyes whenever they lock

eye contact. Even if she just knows that it's more

than just that.

She wants him to feel the same coldness that

she went through, whenever they would see

each other and she'd attempt to greet him,

whenever he walked past with cold indifference

and even a hint of haughtiness, as if she wasn't

worthy to be part of his world.

(And every single day she feels just like that, be-

cause he's the star of his own hypothetical show

and she's just another backstage hand.)

Sometimes she wonders if he's thinking along

the same lines. Sometimes she wonders if she

would just let her guard down and just act out

her real feelings whenever he's around.

And she made the mistake of glancing back.

The first thing she notices is the genuine smile

and hint of a laugh, an emotion that looks foreign

on his face.

The next thing she notices is the just-enclosed

hand in his, a smooth, white hand that belongs

to the person next to him, a brunette with curly

hair and stunning facial features; a model, a

stereotype.

She feels cold alright, but this one has nothing

to do with the chill of the night air as she sprints

under the lampposts. This has something to do

with the failures crashing down on her, with the

nights lying on her pillow and staring up into the

ceiling, with the songs in her head that she has

dedicated to him, with the dried streaks of tears

on her pale cheeks when she dreams of red and

black and mixed-up spikes.

She likes to glance, and has made so many as-

sumptions about it.

This time, she's just had one glance too many.

xxx

She stares out into the open sky, watching the

orange haze fade into deep indigo. She listens

to the music filtering through her earphones with-

out really listening, because her mind's blank

and her heart's nothing but a hollow chamber of

dull memories. (TBC)

Stories continued on our website: upparser.com

UP Parser 2009-2010 Issue 1

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Transcript of UP Parser 2009-2010 Issue 1