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snobol wrote:
Does that clarify my post?
This makes me undestand your post 
snobol wrote:
PS is my English better when I do try?
It sure is. The point is that if I read some poorly written english posts, I have to try real hard to undestand it. Since there are many people here who do not speak english as their native language (including myself), I have to live with it.
Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother
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The university definately is not going to teach you everything, it's impossible. It's really there just to expose you to something. If anyone thinks they can just go to school and once they're done they're done that's all they need to know is definately overlooking.
There are two things I think about college and both are somewhat related.
1. Exposure to things you may not have had before.
If someone is new to computers, they could for the first time be exposed to C. Now if they stop there, they obviously are doing themselves a harm. However, now that they are introduced after the course they should continue if that's what they want to do. There are also things that are redundant though if you have learned on your own.
2. Introduction and doing things you wouldn't usually do on your own.
They may expose you to something you may not have investigated or implemented on your own for example. You may love games so you only program games, perhaps in school you take a compiler writing class. Perhaps this is something you would not investigate on your own however now that you're forced to you add a little bit of knowledge to your plate. You mention UML, perhaps that's something you wouldn't have learned on your own, so you do pick up things here and there and you get to choose if you want to follow that path more or less.
They generally expose you to the basics and a little beyond. The courses are usually written towards those who have never programmed and that may be the problem. It takes a long time to get up to speed to be able to perform certain tasks, so perhaps that's another reason they are slower. Also, most college are geared towards the general population. The average IQ is only 100 so the general population is dumb by a whole. So if you had an advanced C course, perhaps 90% of the students who would currently take it would fail. Perhaps those are the students who would really be IT guys who only put together small applications every now and then for login scripts or something.
So, perhaps they really need to seperate "Computer Science" to gear it more towards developers, some colleges do have "Software Eng." courses for example. They should also have difficulty levels for those courses so the faster paced people can be with other faster paced people while the slower people can be with the slower people.
8bc7c0ec02c0e404c0cc0680f7018827ebee
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Toby Opferman wrote:
So, perhaps they really need to seperate "Computer Science" to gear it more towards developers, some colleges do have "Software Eng." courses for example. They should also have difficulty levels for those courses so the faster paced people can be with other faster paced people while the slower people can be with the slower people.
This is what I was thinking too. They should introduce difficulty levels and have a few courses for the "expert" students.
The difference between what the business community ask of newly graduates and what newly graduates have to offer here is huge! Since they wan't to teach everybody a little bit of everything, the teach almost nothing. I mean, how redundant are 4 classes about syntax of 4 different languages? Once you know the most difficult one, the rest becomes a few hours of reading..
Anyway, nothing is perfect and nothing ever will be.
Behind every great black man...
... is the police. - Conspiracy brother
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I dropped out of high school, because I did no homework ( too busy playing with computers ). I guess that all worked out OK for me then....
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++
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I failed 2 years for the same reason. Not enough time to do homework when I was building and programming computers 
Teachers never did understand me.
That and the age old fallacy that you can't be good in computers unless you are good in math.
George Carlin wrote:
"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the a**hole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
My Blog[^]
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I am absolutely not good at math. But still I do a study Computer Science.
Two more years to go and I will have my bachelor degree 
WM.
What about weapons of mass-construction?
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Ray Cassick wrote:
you can't be good in computers unless you are good in math
I was also brought up to believe that. Was even not allowed to attend comp. sci. at school because my math wasn't great (OK, just not great).
Reality is that 80% of ppl that started with comp. sci. at school ended up dropping it.
I'll be sure to drop passed the local McD when I next go home to see how they are doing (not at all bitter) . 
I have some done a fair amount of math in some projects, but it's not the bulk of the industry I work in at all.
Cheers,
Simon
sig ::
"Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead.", Jackie Chan on career choices.
article :: animation mechanics in SVG blog:: brokenkeyboards
"Most of us are programmers, but a few use VB", Christian Graus
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Ray Cassick wrote:
that you can't be good in computers unless you are good in math.
Depends. Every programmer must be good at least in some math: Boolean algebra, basics of set theory, etc. Then there may be a need for more depending on specifics of programmer's job. Ie, in the beginning of my career I used numerical analysis, later computational geometry, and these days some statistics and probability (admitedly, not much ) Math is a tool, like everything else, and having another tool in your pocket can never hurt.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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I learned how to program in a single university extension course. Before that, I was a litigation attorney. All that schooling and almost none of it had any relevance to my current life.
Tom Clement
Serena Software, Inc.
www.serena.com
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Went through high school and professional high, and now doing my B.Sc in Software Engineering.. So far, I've pretty much self-taught myself everything I've ever needed. The teachers and the classes aren't worth much, since due to time constraints, they can't teach anything specific or in-detail, thus I have to learn it all myself..
-Antti Keskinen
----------------------------------------------
"If we wrote a report stating we saw a jet fighter with a howitzer, who's going to believe us ?"
-- R.A.F. pilot quote on seeing a Me 262 armed with a 50mm Mauser cannon.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Self taught, all the way
I dropped out of high school
I assume after you learned how to read. And yes I could read before High School also. 
I do not mind getting old. It beats all the other options that I can think of.
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I had 5 "careers" prior to discovering computers. Then
numerous years in the field prior to discovering
"programming". All self taught, on the job, when I was
past 30. No home computers for me when I was growing up
 But in code I found a home. Still, I often wondered
if my friends that had their computer science degrees
had more "depth". The best programmers I have met
were engineers turned programmer. And the best sys
admin was a Astro Physicist.
I have a question to suggest to the poll: how many
editors have you used? How many languages have your
learned (I include shell scripting)?
Has anyone here ever uses a character editior on a
Silent 700? Or even know what a character editor is?
(War stories )
WedgeSoft
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c64 here.
not too relevant to todays technology. although it did endear a love for the "goto" statement.
I remember the punch card / tape systems my father developed on, that filled an entire room.
/bb|[^b]{2}/
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C64..XT...
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein
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If you had a 386, you were "the bomb". Most of our computers in high school were 286's or 8088's that had dual floppy drives and no hard disk.
Fortunatley, Turbo Pascal fit on one floppy, which left you a second to store your programs. 
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
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And the Turbo Technojocks Toolkit fit on another. Memory lane...
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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Technology is not the only part of your job, even if you're a programmer.
English and Maths also very important. I also did more advanced maths in university, but never needed it for my job - just the simple stuff from secondry school was enough.
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BBCs! Ah - they were the days
(Am I dating myself here?  )
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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The programming class I had in high school was in cobal, using punched cards. We had to send the stack to the community college to see if it would compile/run.
Jim
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We had an 'old school' server room and green TTY terminals EVERYWHERE  There were even 2 braille paper terminals that were combination printers(indenters?) and keyboards. I used to stare in awe at those giant drive platers in the clear plastic canister.
It was as close as I would ever get to the W.O.P.E.R. from WarGames[^] without all the blinking lights.
The year after I graduated High School they "upgraded" to 286's.
All the sexyness was gone
[ Jason De Arte | Toy Maker | 1001010.com ]
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I can relate to the entire room computers for sure. The first computer I got to touch in high school was a Bendix G-15. I remember having to reseat some of the circuit boards plugged in all around this refrigerator sized thing.
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendix_G-15
Of course using the G-15 was better than using the remote computer using the 110 baud (yes that number has no K anywhere near it) acoustic coupler.
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Tandy at Elementary, an apple in middle school, and at home......
Heath/Zenith home kit computer running CPM....
And for fun... TI 99-4A.
--
"The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rule by preying upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the Republic destroyed."
-- Abraham Lincoln
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Vic20
C64
Comodore PET
TRS80
ZX80
AppleII
Apple Lisa (yes I actually used one for a few weeks)
George Carlin wrote:
"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
If the physicists find a universal theory describing the laws of universe, I'm sure the a**hole constant will be an integral part of that theory.
My Blog[^]
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I did QBasic, Turbo Pascal, and C++ in high school. I graduated in '98, tho.
Michael Flanakin
Web Log
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Z80 and XT.
Working on the XT was outstanding, exciting, making your heart thump ... even if I could not understand why would you have files and folders (Z80 background)
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