Hello all,

This week we have a talk from Bloomberg about how to efficiently implement quick sort in industry, the third Learn to Code session, and a Geek Night. In fifth week Ensoft will be joining us for a talk on cloud-scale data centres. As I'm sure many of you are aware we've seen really great demand for Learn to Code, and I would once again like to thank all the volunteers that have assisted us with running the sessions. The materials from all the sessions will now be made available via GitHub https://github.com/oxcompsoc/learntocode (hint: if you want to see where future sessions are going, take a look at the |future| branch).

At last week's Geek Night we had a go at writing OpenGL shaders to generate an animated version of the CompSoc logo. You can take a look at some of the code here https://github.com/oxcompsoc/shaders. This one https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ltKSW3 is my favourite, as it takes advantage of the text hidden in the logo! If you're interested at practising your programming skills or just learning something new, we often theme Geek Nights like this.

Have a great week :)

Thomas and the rest of the committee

Events

Bloomberg: Quicker Sorting https://www.facebook.com/events/707824112729406/

*Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Wednesday (4th week)*

Quicksort is a well-known sorting algorithm used to implement sort functionality in many libraries. The presentation isn't really about the algorithm itself but rather about how to actually create an efficient implementation of the algorithm: a text-book implementation of the algorithm actually is not that quick (even if the pivot is chosen cleverly). It takes paying some attention to detail to improve the implementation significantly. This presentation starts with a simple implementation and makes incremental improvements to eventually yield a proper generic and fast sorting function. All code will be in C++ but it should be possible to follow the majority of the reasoning with knowledge of another programming language.

After the talk we will have pizza and the opportunity to speak to the speaker.

Learn to Code https://www.facebook.com/events/1680272885603248/

*Lecture Theatre A, Room 051, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Thursday (3rd week)*

In the third session we're going to continue looking at |while| loops by building a number guessing game before learning how to write your own functions. Like this second session, much of the session will require you to work on a laptop, so we highly recommend taking one.

We do expect demand to be very high for this course, so please try to arrive before the advertised start time as we need to register everyone (for fire regulations). You'll need to enter via the back door on Parks Road; there are CompSoc signs up at the department.

If you're a CS student with a little spare time and enthusiasm, please consider volunteering by contacting the committee.

Geek Night 4 https://www.facebook.com/events/1656689631300367/

*Undergraduate Social Area, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Saturday (4th week)*

Join us for an evening of relaxing, chatting, games, coding, and the usual selection of food and drinks.

We will also have an Adafruit IoT starterkit and a BBC micro:bit if you are interested in learning some embedded programming.

Ensoft Tech Talk: How to build a 300 acre computer https://www.facebook.com/events/675360745957957/

*Lecture Theatre A, Department of Computer Science - 7pm Wednesday (5th week)*

Cloud-scale data centers are the biggest computing machines ever built, and warp the very structure of the Internet. This talk gives an accessible view into these creations, including how networking is evolving to enable them.

Bio: Simon Chatterjee is Director & CTO of Ensoft, whose experience includes helping to bring into existence the Guinness Book of Records' "World's Highest Capacity Internet Router".

Pizza will also be provided.

Other notices

Facebook London Hackathon http://www.fb.me/LonHack17

*Facebook London, 10 Brock Street, NW1 3 London - 11th & 12th March*

Here at Facebook, we believe that every engineer possesses amazing ideas and creativity. Hackathons are a longstanding tradition at Facebook where our engineers stay up all night to create a working product or prototype from scratch. Remember- done is better than perfect.

*Please note - all members of your team must register individually for the opportunity to attend*

Register here https://fblonhack17.splashthat.com/

Join Facebook in London as we stay up all night hacking, learning and having a some fun! Start brainstorming ideas & forming teams (of up to 4 people). We'll supply the food, fun diversions, prizes, and some expert guidance in the form of our engineers. We'll also provide reimbursement for public transportation. You bring your laptop, appetite, skills and ideas.

The winning team will get the chance to compete against teams from other Hackathons at the Hackathon Finals and be judged by our executives- held at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, California in November!

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The Oxford University Computer Society (CompSoc) aims to organise meetings and events for our members to use and further their computing interests. See all of our upcoming events on our Facebook Page https://facebook.com/oxcompsoc, Twitter https://twitter.com/oxcompsoc, or visit our website https://ox.compsoc.net for more information about the society.