Seriously. To do any serious task requires state, and the problem with a minimal shell is that it can't remember much. The major scripting languages where all written to solve this problem, as well as integrate with embedded code in C. I'm a fan of Tcl myself, but virtually any scripting engine would be an improvement to a network enabled Pseudo-BASH with a whitespace delimited language.
You know a craftsman by his work. Programmers, real programmers, are always fiddling, and love to show off. Imagine if you were hiring a mad scientist, and he came to the interview with zero crazy schemes for world domination and had never grafted a deadly weapon to a deadlier life form. Would you take her seriously? Would you hire an astronomer who never looked through a telescope beyond school hours? No. Would you hire a ballplayer who just majored in the sport, and had never played a single game?
There are doers and couch warmers. Doers know doers. Couch warmers know couches,
...to the first interview without having developed something? I got into programming because I loved programming. I was writhing games in BASIC at 10. By 16 I had picked up C. My freshman year of college I was running servers on my machine in the dorm. By my junior year I was coding professionally. (Never did end up graduating come to think of it...)
When employers want to hear about hobbies, they want to hear about hobbies like mine. Writing web registration apps for large non-profits. Building IPhone apps. Programming micro controllers.
For $600 you could have gotten an iPhone with all of that. In 2007. Today, you could pick up 6 late model, or two high end, or one gold plated latest model with the extended warranty, tinted windows, and curb feelers.
No actually, I would argue that it's better to simply start with the basic concepts of C and then get more complicated. Sorta-teaching kids a half dozen languages is meaningless, if our stated goal is to turn out competent IT people.
It's not exactly like C::Java as Integral Calculus::Algebra
Java is a complex monster all it's own, and half the complexity is because it tries to get cute with pass by references, garbage collection, and all manner of things that would only take a week of class time to teach a sufficiently curious individual.
With C, most of the complexity is in dealing with the limitations of the computer itself. It can only do one thing at a time. Memory is finite. If you allocated it, you have to free it.
(When you start getting into object systems, my argument is to ditch compiled options and layer on a scripting language like Python or TclOO that can better handle the Kama-Sutra like transformations abstract objects need to perform.)
Well, if you don't understand memory addressing... how do you understand programming to start with? It's so simple "I want a block of memory" is malloc(). I'm done with a block of memory is free(). A pointer points to a block of memory that was malloc()'ed.
I was 16 years old, reading a xerox copy of K&R's "The C Programming Language", and my only prior experience was BASIC. (Where the looping construct was "GOTO")
The problem is, kids aren't learning programming languages because they are fun. They are learning them in class, and under the gun. It takes years of playing with these concepts before they make sense. And we don't have the kinds of curriculum that stress "this is a multi-year discipline in which what you learn in year 1 forms the basis for year 2." Instead, we reward kids one correct answer at a time, and never mind that the 9 questions they got right were useless, and the one question they got wrong betrays a complete misunderstanding of the subject, it's an "A".
The problem isn't an engineering education. The problem is a complete an total lack of humanities while undertaking said education. Well, not total lack, but a general consideration that it's a pain in the ass and not required to get your job done.
I nary saw a history class, and the only "humanities" we were offered were labeled such. (I.E. a premade minimal class just to say were had it.)
You also have the problem in that Engineering degrees are so in demand, our engineering schools have become diploma mills. Self-contained enclaves. There was no effort on the part of my school to connect what we were learning to anything else. If anything the attitude was "Engineers were special", and everything (including basic math) had a "For engineers" in the title.
Heck, I worked at a museum that ended up spending 6 figures to wholesale replace their IBM System 36 accounting system with an AS/400. (Including having developers completely rewrite the RPG code...)
In 2001 we had several companies that wanted to donate System 36's to be museum displays. We ended up telling them that we already had 2 of our own!
True, but that would require law enforcement actually out and patrolling. With a tickbox system, they can just sit on the shoulder with one eye on the Radar gun, and another on the lookout for those hooligans who ride in the HOV lane with a single rider.
One minor knit to pick. The momentum doesn't double with a doubling of the speed of the reaction mass. It quadruples. Remember your high school physics: KE=0.5*m*v**2
Nuclear reactors don't have to be all that heavy. The Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft had plutonium power cells. You pretty much can scale nuclear power to whatever size and power you need. (We don't usually use small power plants simply because it's more cost effective to power devices other ways.)
Nothing personal against you, but I've been programming since the age of 10, I've held the title of "Senior Network Engineer" at a research institution for 11 years. And right now I design simulations for the DOD out of bare metal, C, and Tcl/Tk.
And I use a Mac. And in fact, everyone I know who knows what the hell they are doing uses one too.
Actually, opening the case to replace the hard drive will not void your warranty. We used to do it all the time, at the blessing (and instruction) of our Apple Support reps when I was a network admin.
Same with RAM chips. Where it gets dicy are factory sealed items like iPods and iPhones where the only way to get them open is essentially with machine tools, and getting them back together involves industrial solvents and adhesive.
Depends on your definition of a "good OSS citizen." In the scary government research/mad scientist corporate research market BSD licensed code is ideal. We *can* use it, because releasing our source code would, in fact, violate either DMSO or corporate licensing arrangements.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and frankly when our company makes something that we see as useful, but not a core product, we do release it and/or submit patches back to whence it came. I just like not having some idiot ramrodding us for not giving proprietary information out to our competitors.
(And why Tcl/Tk is under the hood of many secret squirrel projects.)
Well when you use the adjective "best", you pretty much eliminate a claim to "cheap".
And at $1100, a 13" Macbook has been ideal for my purposes. It's usable on an airplane. Powerful enough to run all of my development kits. I can kick off Linux and Windows XP when I need to target those platforms (especially handy when the boss needs a new build and I'm 3 time zones away at a conference.)
But there is an important caveat. America always catches and releases. We invade, set up a new government, and for the most part *LEAVE*. (An odd air field or fueling spot of the Navy not withstanding.)
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Seriously. To do any serious task requires state, and the problem with a minimal shell is that it can't remember much. The major scripting languages where all written to solve this problem, as well as integrate with embedded code in C. I'm a fan of Tcl myself, but virtually any scripting engine would be an improvement to a network enabled Pseudo-BASH with a whitespace delimited language.
You know a craftsman by his work. Programmers, real programmers, are always fiddling, and love to show off. Imagine if you were hiring a mad scientist, and he came to the interview with zero crazy schemes for world domination and had never grafted a deadly weapon to a deadlier life form. Would you take her seriously? Would you hire an astronomer who never looked through a telescope beyond school hours? No. Would you hire a ballplayer who just majored in the sport, and had never played a single game?
There are doers and couch warmers. Doers know doers. Couch warmers know couches,
...to the first interview without having developed something? I got into programming because I loved programming. I was writhing games in BASIC at 10. By 16 I had picked up C. My freshman year of college I was running servers on my machine in the dorm. By my junior year I was coding professionally. (Never did end up graduating come to think of it...)
When employers want to hear about hobbies, they want to hear about hobbies like mine. Writing web registration apps for large non-profits. Building IPhone apps. Programming micro controllers.
Coding is a lifestyle, it's not a major.
For $600 you could have gotten an iPhone with all of that. In 2007. Today, you could pick up 6 late model, or two high end, or one gold plated latest model with the extended warranty, tinted windows, and curb feelers.
What was the argument for the Android again?
No actually, I would argue that it's better to simply start with the basic concepts of C and then get more complicated. Sorta-teaching kids a half dozen languages is meaningless, if our stated goal is to turn out competent IT people.
It's not exactly like C::Java as Integral Calculus::Algebra
Java is a complex monster all it's own, and half the complexity is because it tries to get cute with pass by references, garbage collection, and all manner of things that would only take a week of class time to teach a sufficiently curious individual.
With C, most of the complexity is in dealing with the limitations of the computer itself. It can only do one thing at a time. Memory is finite. If you allocated it, you have to free it.
(When you start getting into object systems, my argument is to ditch compiled options and layer on a scripting language like Python or TclOO that can better handle the Kama-Sutra like transformations abstract objects need to perform.)
Well, if you don't understand memory addressing... how do you understand programming to start with? It's so simple "I want a block of memory" is malloc(). I'm done with a block of memory is free(). A pointer points to a block of memory that was malloc()'ed.
I was 16 years old, reading a xerox copy of K&R's "The C Programming Language", and my only prior experience was BASIC. (Where the looping construct was "GOTO")
The problem is, kids aren't learning programming languages because they are fun. They are learning them in class, and under the gun. It takes years of playing with these concepts before they make sense. And we don't have the kinds of curriculum that stress "this is a multi-year discipline in which what you learn in year 1 forms the basis for year 2." Instead, we reward kids one correct answer at a time, and never mind that the 9 questions they got right were useless, and the one question they got wrong betrays a complete misunderstanding of the subject, it's an "A".
The problem isn't an engineering education. The problem is a complete an total lack of humanities while undertaking said education. Well, not total lack, but a general consideration that it's a pain in the ass and not required to get your job done.
I nary saw a history class, and the only "humanities" we were offered were labeled such. (I.E. a premade minimal class just to say were had it.)
You also have the problem in that Engineering degrees are so in demand, our engineering schools have become diploma mills. Self-contained enclaves. There was no effort on the part of my school to connect what we were learning to anything else. If anything the attitude was "Engineers were special", and everything (including basic math) had a "For engineers" in the title.
Yes, but my list would be different than your list. And thus...
Heck, I worked at a museum that ended up spending 6 figures to wholesale replace their IBM System 36 accounting system with an AS/400. (Including having developers completely rewrite the RPG code...)
In 2001 we had several companies that wanted to donate System 36's to be museum displays. We ended up telling them that we already had 2 of our own!
KDE 4 is the reason all of my users boot into XCFE by default.
(Shudder)
And given that 9/11 happened in 2001, it'll be back to decades old in a two years...
And actually, the way the law is worded, my iPhone would be exempt. It's docked into a charger/fm transmitter station.
True, but that would require law enforcement actually out and patrolling. With a tickbox system, they can just sit on the shoulder with one eye on the Radar gun, and another on the lookout for those hooligans who ride in the HOV lane with a single rider.
I take it somebody has never had a bad day and found him or herself on the wrong side of the law.
What kind of "economy of scale" is there to throwing out working systems and replacing them?
Oh right... this is management types we are talking about...
Or Blur's "Song #2"
One minor knit to pick. The momentum doesn't double with a doubling of the speed of the reaction mass. It quadruples. Remember your high school physics: KE=0.5*m*v**2
If anything, it only reinforces your point.
Nuclear reactors don't have to be all that heavy. The Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft had plutonium power cells. You pretty much can scale nuclear power to whatever size and power you need. (We don't usually use small power plants simply because it's more cost effective to power devices other ways.)
Nothing personal against you, but I've been programming since the age of 10, I've held the title of "Senior Network Engineer" at a research institution for 11 years. And right now I design simulations for the DOD out of bare metal, C, and Tcl/Tk.
And I use a Mac. And in fact, everyone I know who knows what the hell they are doing uses one too.
STFU. Please.
Ok... we just bought a macbook for our new developer. And, with all the fixings it came out to $1159.
Kindly STFU.
Actually, opening the case to replace the hard drive will not void your warranty. We used to do it all the time, at the blessing (and instruction) of our Apple Support reps when I was a network admin.
Same with RAM chips. Where it gets dicy are factory sealed items like iPods and iPhones where the only way to get them open is essentially with machine tools, and getting them back together involves industrial solvents and adhesive.
Depends on your definition of a "good OSS citizen." In the scary government research/mad scientist corporate research market BSD licensed code is ideal. We *can* use it, because releasing our source code would, in fact, violate either DMSO or corporate licensing arrangements.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and frankly when our company makes something that we see as useful, but not a core product, we do release it and/or submit patches back to whence it came. I just like not having some idiot ramrodding us for not giving proprietary information out to our competitors.
(And why Tcl/Tk is under the hood of many secret squirrel projects.)
Well when you use the adjective "best", you pretty much eliminate a claim to "cheap".
And at $1100, a 13" Macbook has been ideal for my purposes. It's usable on an airplane. Powerful enough to run all of my development kits. I can kick off Linux and Windows XP when I need to target those platforms (especially handy when the boss needs a new build and I'm 3 time zones away at a conference.)
But there is an important caveat. America always catches and releases. We invade, set up a new government, and for the most part *LEAVE*. (An odd air field or fueling spot of the Navy not withstanding.)
Find me an empire in the past that did that?