Programme Information
Date: 11th December 2020
Venue: Google Meet (online platform)
Organizer: Persatuan Mahasiswa Sains Komputer (PERSAKA) UTM
Position: -
Role: Participant
Get to know more about Go Language or Golang and coding experiences from the honorable speaker
Mini Report
Code On Weekend was organized on 11th December 2020 (Friday) in conjunction with COMPFAIR 2020, from 9.30am to 12.00pm. This activity aimed to introduce a commonly-used language, Go Language or GoLang to students in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
I registered myself to join the activity because I was desired to be exposed to a new programming language and learnt from the experienced tutor. There were 40 participants taking part in the activity and the activity was divided into 2 sessions where basic theory and basic hands-on coding were carried out.
Not forgetting to mention the honorable experienced speaker, Dr. Afnizanfaizal Abdullah, he was invited to share his knowledge in using GoLang in the real working environment. During the activity, Dr. Afnizanfaizal explained the concept behind GoLang and reveal the two system that could be generated from GoLang, including the AI system and the ML system. He told the participants that AI system generated is used to implement sentimental analysis according to the feedbacks received from the users while the ML system is used to train the system with several known handwriting image samples and let the ML system to identify handwritten numbers.
The activity of Code On Weekend involves some UTM Graduate Attributes including thinking skills, adaptability and enterprising skills. For thinking skills, the activity required the participants to always consider the logic processes of the coding concepts of GoLang. While for adaptability, participants were trained to adapt to a brand new programming language exposed by the speaker and learn it rapidly in this short activity lasting for only two and a half hour. As the activity intended to present an open-source GoLang programming language to the participants, Dr. Afnizanfaizal shared his previous experiences on solving problems by developing a software in the industry using GoLang. The necessity of enterprising skills was indirectly conveyed to the participants as initiatives are needed in the real working environment and employees could make full use of the skill in job hunting.
Self-Reflection
One of the gains after participating in the activity of Code On Weekend is that I have successfully adapted to the very basic knowledge of GoLang using general code command lines. It has similar syntax with C language but with add-on functionalities. For instances, structural typing is provided in GoLang and memory safety is protected from software bugs and security vulnerabilities.
Moreover, the activity ran smoothly as all of us were frequently prompted by some questions from the speaker and we had to think of its solutions after figuring out the principles behind the functioning GoLang operations. For example, we were asked to apply the fundamentals of GoLang language to enable the machine to read handwritten numbers.
As I do not have powerful coding skills, at first of the hands-on session, I faced some challenges in implementing the knowledge learnt during the activity. I needed some time to digest and process the concepts in order to deliver functionable code command lines.