Cutting Edge

COMPUTER SCIENCE 50--Students flocking to Science Center C expected to hear Visiting Professor Brian W. Kernighan lecture on the "C" programming language.

After all, he helped write the program, and his textbook, which is required reading for the course, is affectionately referred to by computer science concentrators as "the Bible."

They didn't think he would shave his beard.

Kernighan asked students shopping CS 50: "Introduction to Computer Science" to shout out directions, which he then followed or ignored, depending on whether he could understand them.

"His beard was kind of long, and he needed a trim. So he pulled out all these cutting instruments, and had people call out instructions to him," said Susanna K. Mlynarczyk '97.

"No one could get him to do it right," she said. "He was acting pretty stupid, like computers. But he cut his beard at the end--just a little bit, just a small tuft."

Aside from filling every seat in the lecture hall, so many sweating students packed into the back of the room that small drops of condensation could be seen on the ceiling.

Selling Coolio

LITERATURE AND ARTS C-22--Professor of Medieval Latin and Comparative Literature Jan M. Ziolkowski came to class yesterday at noon seeking to make shoppers eager buyers of the Medieval European culture.

Those who left Boylston Auditorium early mainly headed towards the Coop to buy Dante's "Inferno."

The professor of Literature and Arts C-22: "European Culture in the Latin Middle Ages" wowed shoppers with slides of the Starbucks coffee logo, a video clip from "Pulp Fiction," and an audio clip from a Weird Al Yankovich spoof of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise."

He rounded out the hour with the "Top Ten Reasons to Take This Course."

The list included the "fantastic readings" and the auditorium's "comfortable chairs."

Number one? "You can sleep until noon and still get up in time to fulfill a Literature and Arts requirement."