Then and Now
Five Questions with CS Graduates Xiaodong Zhang (PhD 1989) and Jude Allred (BS 2009)
Twenty years ago, Professor Xiaodong Zhang (张晓东) had just completed his PhD dissertation
in Boulder. Today, he is the Robert M. Critchfield Professor in Engineering and chair of the
Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Ohio State University.
He tells us that his career path from Boulder to Columbus, Ohio, has been both challenging and
exciting. He spent his first eight years after graduation at the University of Texas in San Antonio
where he became acting chair of the newly formed computer science program and led the effort
to build a Ph.D. program; from there, he moved to the College of William and Mary in
Jude’s award from the college was well-deserved. He served both as an Engineering
Fellow and a member of the Engineering Excellence Fund Committee. Within our own
Would each of you please tell us about the focus of your computer science work.
Xiaodong Zhang: A common thread of my research focuses on fast data accesses and resource
sharing with cost- and energy-efficient management at different levels of the memory and storage
hierarchies in distributed computers and Internet systems. I have led research projects for design
and implementation of caches, memory and storage systems. One work of ours, impacting both
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Jude Allred: I work at Fog Creek Software, which is Joel Spolsky’s company, and I’m a FogBugz
developer. Because our company is fairly small, we’re all more-or-less engaged with all of the
products and initiatives of Fog Creek. Aside from general engagement, I’m part of a small team of
Professor Zhang, what are the biggest changes that you’ve seen in the field of computing
over the twenty years since you’ve completed your PhD?
Xiaodong Zhang: The first biggest change I have seen is that “computing” has become a basic
and necessary utility everywhere in the human society, almost equivalent to the value of water
and electricity. It is low-cost (or free in many ways), pervasive, and well connected by Internet
and wireless networks.
Jude, what are the workdays like in 2010 for a new graduate?
My days are pretty varied. The only things that don’t vary, really, are that I work 8-hour days, and
lunch is at noon. I have my own office, an Aeron chair, and a very large whiteboard. Here’s a
short list of common activities:
1. Fixing a bug or performance issue: Sometimes this involves working with a customer
2. Implementing new functionality: I always have some sort of project that I’m working on.
(If it’s a large project I might be put into ‘protected’ mode, which means that the other
developers will take care of any tech support issues that might otherwise come my way.)
3. Writing or giving feedback on a functional specification: All new features with a
significant visible-to-the-user component start out as functional specs. This is because
4. Performing a code review: All of our code is peer-reviewed, and we perform the reviews
5. Lunch. We eat lunch together every day. It’s rather like Thanksgiving, but daily and
much more varied. This is a very significant part of my day, as it’s a chance for me to sit
6. Talking to people: I usually have a queue of questions or things that I want to discuss
with assorted people, so I’ll call them into my office whenever they walk past. Some
What advice would you each give to an 18-year-old who is considering computer science as
a career?
Professor Zhang: First, the strong U.S. leadership in computing technology is also reflected by
providing best computer science education and research program in universities. Thus, choosing a
computer science major in a U.S. university is a very wise decision with many advantages.
Second, computer science is not equivalent to programming at all (perhaps you saw that in Jude’s
answer). In fact, basic programming classes are required to all majors now in U.S. universities,
Fourth , hardworking is a basic requirement in our field. Computer science is a highly personal,
merit-based field. A lot of effort is required to master the subject. In Malcolm Gladwell’s recent
book of Outliers, he gives a rule of 10,000 hours concentrating on a subject in any fields in order
Right from the start, your CSCI 1300 and 2270 are rather the ultimate. In those courses I
learned the fundamental tools that I’ve since been reapplying constantly. If you’re able to