User:SWeiss

Stewart N. Weiss

Stewart N. Weiss is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science in Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York City's public university system. Hunter College has more than 23,000 students and 1800 full- and part-time faculty members. As of spring 2016, the Computer Science Department consisted of eleven full-time faculty members, with two more joining the Department in fall 2016. Prof. Weiss joined the Department in 1987 and has been teaching there ever since.

Prof. Weiss received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1987 from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University, under the mentor-ship of Dr. Elaine Weyuker. His research interest was in the area of software testing, concentrating on the testing of parallel and concurrent software, but also expanding to theoretical and experimental comparisons of various software testing methods and paradigms. Prof. Weiss's research later shifted to include the study of improved methods of computational quantum chemistry, specifically in approximation methods for computing molecular energy using ab initio methods.

More recently, Prof. Weiss has become interested in computer science education as a research topic in itself, with a particular interest in the teaching of software testing to computer science students.

Prof. Weiss was not always a computer scientist. He started out by earning a degree in architecture school from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, in 1973, and worked in that discipline, initially in architectural offices, and later with his own design and construction firm, through 1980, when he returned to school to obtain an undergraduate degree in mathematics. What architecture, mathematics, and computer science have in common is the creation of things, such as physical environments, models of abstractions or natural phenomena, or software. Consistent with this is that, in his spare time, Prof. Weiss loves cooking, indoor gardening, building and repairing furniture, and photography.

IRC Activity

1. How do people interact on IRC? People write "comments" that are seen by all who are logged into the channel. They can also enter commands. Comments are typically short, no more than a single line.

2. What is the pattern of communication? Is it linear or branched? Formal or informal? One-to-many, one-to-one or a mix? The pattern of communication is very much like the interactions that takes place in an informal group meeting. There are one-to-one and one-to-many conversations. The conversation is mostly linear, but it also branches. This is largely dependent on the discipline of the meeting members. In the particular meeting about Mousetrap, the conversation is fairly disciplined, with almost no divergence from the purpose of the meeting. The chair does not have to intervene at any point to control the discussion.