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Putnam, Jeffrey
telesign
Marina Del Rey, California
 
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Jeffrey Putnam has spent (and misspent) his life quite happily in the pursuit of knowledge of all sorts. After getting an undergraduate degree in mathematics, he spent several years in the Peace Corps in Zaire learning to speak French with an atrocious accent, as well as getting on-the-job lessons in how to inflict math and physics on high school students. After returning to the US, he went to graduate school at the University at Albany, garnering two master's degrees along the way.

A real job eventually became inevitable, and he worked for the Computer Science Branch at General Electrics Research and Development Center and as the main programmer for a startup, before returning to student life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his PhD in electrical, systems and computer engineering. Since then, he has annoyed students and faculty alike at New Mexico Tech, designed systems and irritated marketers at yet another startup, and tried to serve as the faculty for a computer science program at Eastern Oregon University. He has now landed in Washington State, where he works for the computer science department at Eastern Washington University.

His professional interests range from evolutionary programming and artificial life to computer systems to programming languages (ask tomorrow and the list is likely to change). Nonprofessionally he has been known to enjoy randomly exploring things, including wandering extensively in the woods (sometimes as a wilderness search and rescue volunteer); climbing up and down hills, mountains, and rocks; and reading (though only rarely all at once).

 
 
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1
- 10 of 22 reviews

   
  Introduction to software testing (2nd ed.)
Ammann P., Offutt J., Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2017. 364 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-107172-01-2)

Software testing is essential. It doesn’t much matter if you can do something quickly or in minimal memory or with a spiffy web interface if the results are incorrect, though incorrect might include “more or less co...

Jun 15 2018  
   Data science and analytics with Python
Rogel-Salazar J., Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 2017. 412 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-498742-09-2), Reviews: (2 of 2)

Data science and analytics can be key to improving many things: marketing, understanding, systems modeling, and predictions (from race horses to presidents). And you don’t need to be an expert to use good tools and improve yo...

Jun 1 2018  
   Low-level programming: C, assembly, and program execution on Intel 64 architecture
Zhirkov I., Apress, New York, NY, 2017. 435 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-484224-02-1)

Despite the ease of programming in high-level languages, there will always be things that are best programmed in low-level languages (such as speed, resource usage, and size). Assembler is certainly the lowest language, but assembler p...

Mar 7 2018  
  Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies: a comprehensive introduction
Narayanan A., Bonneau J., Felten E., Miller A., Goldfeder S., Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2016. 336 pp.  Type: Book (978-0-691171-69-2)

Bitcoin is a distributed, consensus-based cryptocurrency. Most currencies are backed by nation states (or, as the Euro, groups of nation states), but other kinds of currencies exist: gold, silver, and diamonds have all been used as de ...

Mar 7 2017  
   Calculus for cognitive scientists: derivatives, integrals and models
Peterson J., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2016. 507 pp.  Type: Book

We hear sometimes that most people don’t need to learn calculus, that other branches of mathematics are better choices. Statistics is often suggested, along with discrete mathematics for computer science students. We even hea...

Aug 8 2016  
  Murach’s C# 2015
Boehm A., Murach J., Mike Murach & Associates, Inc., Fresno, CA, 2016. 908 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-890774-94-3)

Despite the increasing prevalence of browser-based apps (and their advantages in running more or less identically on most platforms), Windows desktop applications remain the bread-and-butter development task for many programmers. The a...

Apr 20 2016  
   Beginning iOS 7 development: exploring the iOS SDK
Nutting J., Olsson F., Mark D., LaMarche J., Apress, Berkeley, CA, 2014. 720 pp.  Type: Book (978-1-430260-22-6)

Mobile app development for phones, tablets, and similar devices is one of the most important areas in programming today. To make things difficult, every platform has its own programming systems, interfaces, and requirements. Naturally,...

Jul 10 2014  
   Bayes’ rule: a tutorial introduction to Bayesian analysis
Stone J., Sebtel Press, Lexington, KY, 2013. 180 pp.  Type: Book (978-0-956372-84-0)

Data is everywhere these days. Big data is certainly a hot topic, but “small data” is often important as well. For instance, in computer vision, there may be a good model for a scene, but parameters of that model ar...

Jun 11 2014  
   Learn Python the hard way: a very simple introduction to the terrifyingly beautiful world of computers and code (3rd ed.)
Shaw Z., Addison-Wesley Professional, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2013. 320 pp.  Type: Book (978-0-321884-91-6)

The first class in programming is often very difficult, both for students and instructors. Students must learn to do things that run counter to much of what they’ve already learned (reading code is an entirely different proce...

Mar 6 2014  
   Functional differential geometry
Sussman G., Wisdom J., Farr W., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013. 256 pp.  Type: Book (978-0-262019-34-7)

Differential geometry is a necessary tool for anyone interested in advanced physics, but it can be an intimidating subject to learn. Using it requires understanding that goes beyond what can be easily described in pictures, and the mat...

Feb 20 2014  
 
 
 
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