Welcome to PPS!

Welcome to the TA Page for the Fall 2010 edition of Programming and Problem Solving - Columbia COMS 4444.

First, about me: My name is Jonathan Bell ("Jon Bell" or "JB" most commonly). I'm a first year Master's student here, but did my undergraduate here and took PPS last year. As an undergrad, I specialized in the "Applications" track. As an MS student, I'm in the "Systems" track. I've interned at Sikorsky Aircraft (in CT), Codestreet (here in NYC), and have been working here for the Dean running and creating various software systems for the school. As of this summer, I have also become co-founder and CTO of RentPost, an online tenant-landlord relations system focusing on rent collection. As an undergrad I worked with Residential Programs for two years as a Community Adviser, creating programming for the 500 residents in the buildings that I oversaw. In my downtime, I enjoy cooking, riding my bike, and taking pictures. It's very poorly maintained, but I do have a flickr.

I'm very excited to be TA'ing this course: it was my favorite course by far last year, and probably top 2-3 courses ever. I've done my best this summer to get the simulators for this term's 4 projects (and make them as bug free as possible!) but please let me know immediately if you believe you have found any bugs or have any problems. I have created a Google Code as a repository for the simulators for your convenience, should we need to update the simulators. I will, of course, also be posting exports of the simulators on CourseWorks as well.

Contacting me:
I will be holding office hours tentatively on Mondays from 11:00-12:00 and Wednesday from 2:45-3:45 in 6LE1 CEPSR - the Programming Systems Laboratory. These hours are subject to revision within the next few weeks. I'm typically around campus a LOT though, so please feel free to ask to meet at another time. I'm available by email, at jbell at seas dot columbia, Jabber (GChat etc) at jon at jonbell (dot) net, or AIM at jonbellhasnoh. If you're stuck with something and want to just ask me a quick question, don't hesitate to ping me on GChat or AIM. If I'm busy I'll let you know, but more than likely I will be able to help you if I'm around.

I hope you enjoy your semester!
Jon