Maybe for a senior-level or grad-level class, but most freshmen barely learn linked lists and arrays. Within 2 courses of completing my CS major I still had not had a single class that even mentioned threading. Forking? Never heard of it. We didn't deal with networking or sockets until Junior year. You expect these people to write a kernel patch? Or even understand what a kernel is? Regardless, you didn't attend my school and so you really have no way to judge the CS program there or my assessment of it.
Not to be flippant, but from this passage it kind of sounds like it sucks.
Well, I guess you made your choice then. Too bad your view of what's of value didn't fit in with the market's view. (And I'm not mocking you here. I'm stuck in retail right now, and rather than cram my head full of Java or C++ APIs because they're the "hot thing", I'm choosing to focus on enhancing my Lisp skills, because I enjoy Lisp and feel that the more abstract skills I am learning are making me far more employable in the long term. Not every right decision is popular.)
[...], but like I said in another post, the CS professors made it sound like Java was a dead-end language and there was no reason to learn it, and so when it came time to find a summer internship there was nothing.
It's often said that the purpose of college is less teaching a particular skillset than it is teaching how to learn. Perhaps instead of blindly accepting your professors' word on Java's future, you should have examined it for yourself and decided whether it was something that might have long-term potential in the market.
That is, really, a very important skill to have in this field. A big part of any software project is ensuring maintainability, which includes making sure that your toolset will be available and widely used in the future, or that the productivity gains from using an obscure but useful toolset will outweigh the expense of finding/training people to use it. This can be a make or break thing for a product or company sometimes. (Or a career?)
I quit high school a year early, haven't gone to college, and I picked up every language I know on my own, well enough to get hired by Sun Microsystems. So big-named companies don't mean anything -- except those for which you've worked?
That's fair. However, there's a slight bit of relevancy, because my job at Sun was Java programming, and hopefully the creators and main promoters of Java have some relevancy in determining Java competency.
To make my point absolutely clear, I do not care how good a programmer you are. If you are taught to program in VBasic, you probably won't be able to pick up Java in 24.2 hours or whatever the book is entitled today; and that's irrelevant anyway.
You seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. Of course if you're only taught 1 language, be it VB, C, or MIPS assembly, you'll have difficulty moving to another. My entire point is that schools shouldn't teach only 1 language, but the entire pantheon, covering all styles (imperative, functional, etc). This makes the language du jour irrelevant, as it is merely another concrete implementation of the abstraction you have learned and have a solid understanding of in your own mind.
In fact, a CS curriculum shouldn't even focus much on the programming language. Obviously, sample implementations of exercises and such should be provided, but years on end of learning the C language and its standard library, or the Java language and its standard library, are a pathetic excuse for a CS program. Computer Science is a different discipline than Computer Programming. There is a huge amount of overlap, but as I stated before, anyone attempting Computer Science as a formal area of study should already have a basic grasp of computers and their software.
You sound like you would be much happier with a trade school, or perhaps a copy of "Teach Yourself Java in 2 Days and Seven Minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!".
Your excitement over how "large" a software company is, and the "worth" that being associated with said company should project, is reminiscent of those who associate Microsoft Windows, or any other common application, with high quality, simply because it is nearly omnipresent.
And your complaint about "not knowing Java" is simply ridiculous. If you supposedly had a CS degree, what on Earth would be so complicated about learning Java, or any other language/environment that you felt like? Sheesh, I quit high school a year early, haven't gone to college, and I picked up every language I know on my own, well enough to get hired by Sun Microsystems and then a startup (and get laid off when the startup ran out of funds, but that's a separate story). I don't see what excuse you have.
Sure, you may claim that I'm "missing the deeper aspects of CS", but that's exactly my point. Basic programming should be a prerequisite to a good CS curriculum. And once you have the basics down, you should be able to pick up any language you have a mind to. Computer science focuses on algorithms and theory, not tools and the mundane details of platform-specific implementation.
And to those who would claim that I'm an inferior programmer simply because I don't have a college education, I will dispute that most strongly. Sure, I can learn more, but everyone can always learn more. And quite frankly, and without any desire to be arrogant, I am more concerned about theory and correctness than most people I have met.
That's why I have been and am still reluctant to "just go to school", as people suggest to me. I've been in high school, and everything was about the mundane, the platform-specific, and the largely irrelevant: don't learn how calculators work or how to translate a problem into a machine-solvable form, learn the sequence of buttons to press on a TI-83; don't learn basic elements of typesetting and page layout; learn how to set margins in Microsoft Word. From what I've seen, college isn't any different. I hear all the time about schools blocking ports, teaching only Java APIs on Win32, or refusing to accept papers in anything but Microsoft Word format (even in math-heavy subjects!). That doesn't interest me. I'd rather spend the time going through the textbooks I've picked up, slogging my way through Knuth, and actually trying to learn the theory. The fact that this should be what an educational institution would give me is, I think, a very sad statement about our society and what we expect of current and future generations.
Galeon includes in its "Smart Toolbar" or whatever it's called dictionary searches, all of the google searches, and some other toys. Yeah, it's a pain to compile, but worth it in the end, especially on architectures like Alpha where a full Mozilla app is especially slow.
That's correct. It reads "Thou shalt not murder", translation errors aside. Murder is the intentional killing of an innocent. Which means that if you believe abortion is murder, an argument can be made that these actions are analogous to war, or to an execution. Both of which happen all the time around here.
The zaurus is bulky and unlikely to succeed in a big way.
Okay, the rest of your post is debatable, but this is just dumb. Sitting here on the shelf are an iPaq and a Zaurus. The Zaurus is a little thinner and shorter (not much, quarter inch at most, but still). Don't forget that the Zaurus has a CF slot and a keyboard built-in, while the iPaq requires a bulky sleeve to use CF and for a keyboard you would have to use one of those folding jobs.
The high-end VTechs are nice from what I've heard, but avoid the 2468 at all costs. No call timer, limited volume range (at least when plugging in a headset), and very staticky reception. By "very" I mean "loud bursts of static every few seconds".
Note that although it's advertised as "2.4GHz!!!!!!!" it, like most phones in that price range, is analog, not DSS. If you want a good analog 2.4GHz phone, though, get GE's $50 phone or a higher model in that series (the highest-end one has a speakerphone and answering machine). However, make sure to get the one with the Caller ID display and the volume controls on the side, even if you don't use Caller ID, because the phones in that series are a bit better designed. Among other things, it has much better volume range on the handset. You can get it at Office Depot, Target, or wherever; it's black and shiny blue.
Re:Not a StrongARM, it's ARM7. No MMU, so uClinux.
on
GameBoy Web Server
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· Score: 1
The best solution I've come up with so far is to use cheap Palm PDAs to store the passwords, encrypted and locked with a good password itself, on special password storage apps
When I wrote my first PalmOS app, I used the impressive LispMe Scheme environment. I have a pretty heavy Lisp background, so admittedly I had a running start, but I'm a Common Lisp guy and there are enough differences to keep it from being completely trivial. I loaded the LispMe reference into Plucker and wrote the whole thing during downtime while walking around on the floor. No reference books, no Web access, nothing. And it didn't take long.
You don't need to write everything in assembly, you know. High level languages are there for a reason.
I've never seen anyone check their schedule on a Palm (after the first week -- when the novelty of it wears off)
I have a Visor, and I do, all the time.
When I got my Visor, I was in high school, and didn't have so much "scheduling" to do, and then I worked at salaried positions where my schedule didn't so much matter, and I worked mostly the same shifts anyway. I started putting meetings and such in there, though, as well as due dates for various projects. (So fun to move them around with schedule slip...:P)
Now I'm working retail, and with the immense schedule variation that I have, my Visor is indispensible. As soon as the schedule goes up, it goes in my Visor, and from then on I can plan stuff with no problem, as I always have it with me. I'm especially fond of the weekly view, as it shows me time bars and gives me a good idea at a glance of what's going on.
I often call my Visor my prosthetic brain, and although people laugh, it's true. I have the VisorPhone too, so I can call a friend without their number ever even passing through my mind. Not sure if that's a good thing though...
You're right though, it's great for killing time. This morning I synced up Plucker, and during the boring bits of the meeting I had the Register, the Onion, and Slashdot.
Re:Not his problem
on
ORBZ Shuts Down
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· Score: 3, Insightful
And Jail Time! heh. Give us a break. You can't be put in jail for writing good software.
I worked for AOL when they "acquired" SUN Microsystems.
Well, you must have been on crack at the time, because that never actually happened.
I used to work for Sun, and what did happen was a "strategic alliance" between Sun and AOL/Netscape. Yeah, it was so great that whenever we'd call for support they'd refuse to answer the phone if they knew it was us calling.
From what I've heard, there have been orders recently within Sun that no official business is to be done over any AOL products (the Instant Messenger especially). But that's just a rumor.
BTW, Netscape 4 is garbage, as we all know, and the iPlanet server disgusts me. It ate our configuration files once. As far as Netscape 6 goes, why would you use it when you can use the version without ads and branding? (Sorry, had to rant for a paragraph there.)
Where I work (retail) they've set up some defective filtering software. Not only does it slow things down horribly and just plain break half the time, they've set it up to block, among other things, all "gamer" sites.
Which means that when a customer asked for specs on a joystick that weren't listed on the box and I went to look the information up for him, I had the answer within seconds but couldn't access it. Oh well. Best Buy got his money.
how many other businesses could operate by telling you... a service rep. will show up between 8am and 5pm --- be waiting
Office Depot. After getting bodily hurled out of the plummeting tech economy, I've ended up selling furniture for the time being. "It'll show up between 8:30 and 5."
"But..."
"Sorry."
"Can you at least add a note to my file asking them to call first?"
"I'd be happy to, but they often ignore said note. Sorry."
And the funny thing is, sometimes they complain and make noise, but they always knuckle under and do what's convenient for us even though they're paying us money. Suckers.
Furthermore, I don't think a secretary/ salesperson/(Insert non-tech job here) should have A+ certification as a prerequisite for her/his job. Knowing MS/WP Office/(or some other custom application) + basic OS tasks should be enough.
Except that most secretaries and salespeople I have seen don't know how to use their office package, nor basic OS tasks.
Somehow, even channels designed for avantgo get screwy. Slashdot, for example, gets hella-big when I set link depth to 3. when i set it to 2, no comments, so no point.
it reminds me of a program i saw on discovery (IIRC) about non-leathal force. it included different types of soft munitions and "safe" chemical warfare... 'cause, you know, nobody is allergic to anything. no. we swear.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be flippant, but from this passage it kind of sounds like it sucks.
Well, I guess you made your choice then. Too bad your view of what's of value didn't fit in with the market's view. (And I'm not mocking you here. I'm stuck in retail right now, and rather than cram my head full of Java or C++ APIs because they're the "hot thing", I'm choosing to focus on enhancing my Lisp skills, because I enjoy Lisp and feel that the more abstract skills I am learning are making me far more employable in the long term. Not every right decision is popular.)
It's often said that the purpose of college is less teaching a particular skillset than it is teaching how to learn. Perhaps instead of blindly accepting your professors' word on Java's future, you should have examined it for yourself and decided whether it was something that might have long-term potential in the market.
That is, really, a very important skill to have in this field. A big part of any software project is ensuring maintainability, which includes making sure that your toolset will be available and widely used in the future, or that the productivity gains from using an obscure but useful toolset will outweigh the expense of finding/training people to use it. This can be a make or break thing for a product or company sometimes. (Or a career?)
That's fair. However, there's a slight bit of relevancy, because my job at Sun was Java programming, and hopefully the creators and main promoters of Java have some relevancy in determining Java competency.
You seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. Of course if you're only taught 1 language, be it VB, C, or MIPS assembly, you'll have difficulty moving to another. My entire point is that schools shouldn't teach only 1 language, but the entire pantheon, covering all styles (imperative, functional, etc). This makes the language du jour irrelevant, as it is merely another concrete implementation of the abstraction you have learned and have a solid understanding of in your own mind.
In fact, a CS curriculum shouldn't even focus much on the programming language. Obviously, sample implementations of exercises and such should be provided, but years on end of learning the C language and its standard library, or the Java language and its standard library, are a pathetic excuse for a CS program. Computer Science is a different discipline than Computer Programming. There is a huge amount of overlap, but as I stated before, anyone attempting Computer Science as a formal area of study should already have a basic grasp of computers and their software.
Your excitement over how "large" a software company is, and the "worth" that being associated with said company should project, is reminiscent of those who associate Microsoft Windows, or any other common application, with high quality, simply because it is nearly omnipresent.
And your complaint about "not knowing Java" is simply ridiculous. If you supposedly had a CS degree, what on Earth would be so complicated about learning Java, or any other language/environment that you felt like? Sheesh, I quit high school a year early, haven't gone to college, and I picked up every language I know on my own, well enough to get hired by Sun Microsystems and then a startup (and get laid off when the startup ran out of funds, but that's a separate story). I don't see what excuse you have.
Sure, you may claim that I'm "missing the deeper aspects of CS", but that's exactly my point. Basic programming should be a prerequisite to a good CS curriculum. And once you have the basics down, you should be able to pick up any language you have a mind to. Computer science focuses on algorithms and theory, not tools and the mundane details of platform-specific implementation.
And to those who would claim that I'm an inferior programmer simply because I don't have a college education, I will dispute that most strongly. Sure, I can learn more, but everyone can always learn more. And quite frankly, and without any desire to be arrogant, I am more concerned about theory and correctness than most people I have met.
That's why I have been and am still reluctant to "just go to school", as people suggest to me. I've been in high school, and everything was about the mundane, the platform-specific, and the largely irrelevant: don't learn how calculators work or how to translate a problem into a machine-solvable form, learn the sequence of buttons to press on a TI-83; don't learn basic elements of typesetting and page layout; learn how to set margins in Microsoft Word. From what I've seen, college isn't any different. I hear all the time about schools blocking ports, teaching only Java APIs on Win32, or refusing to accept papers in anything but Microsoft Word format (even in math-heavy subjects!). That doesn't interest me. I'd rather spend the time going through the textbooks I've picked up, slogging my way through Knuth, and actually trying to learn the theory. The fact that this should be what an educational institution would give me is, I think, a very sad statement about our society and what we expect of current and future generations.
Galeon includes in its "Smart Toolbar" or whatever it's called dictionary searches, all of the google searches, and some other toys. Yeah, it's a pain to compile, but worth it in the end, especially on architectures like Alpha where a full Mozilla app is especially slow.
That's correct. It reads "Thou shalt not murder", translation errors aside. Murder is the intentional killing of an innocent. Which means that if you believe abortion is murder, an argument can be made that these actions are analogous to war, or to an execution. Both of which happen all the time around here.
Not to mention that the refs kept skating in front of the Avs whenever they had the puck. My gf and I both noticed it.
Dave Dravecky wrote about the earthquake. He was playing at the time.
Okay, the rest of your post is debatable, but this is just dumb. Sitting here on the shelf are an iPaq and a Zaurus. The Zaurus is a little thinner and shorter (not much, quarter inch at most, but still). Don't forget that the Zaurus has a CF slot and a keyboard built-in, while the iPaq requires a bulky sleeve to use CF and for a keyboard you would have to use one of those folding jobs.
Note that although it's advertised as "2.4GHz!!!!!!!" it, like most phones in that price range, is analog, not DSS. If you want a good analog 2.4GHz phone, though, get GE's $50 phone or a higher model in that series (the highest-end one has a speakerphone and answering machine). However, make sure to get the one with the Caller ID display and the volume controls on the side, even if you don't use Caller ID, because the phones in that series are a bit better designed. Among other things, it has much better volume range on the handset. You can get it at Office Depot, Target, or wherever; it's black and shiny blue.
Modern PalmOS devices tend to run at 33MHz.
Such as Keyring.
You don't need to write everything in assembly, you know. High level languages are there for a reason.
I have a Visor, and I do, all the time.
When I got my Visor, I was in high school, and didn't have so much "scheduling" to do, and then I worked at salaried positions where my schedule didn't so much matter, and I worked mostly the same shifts anyway. I started putting meetings and such in there, though, as well as due dates for various projects. (So fun to move them around with schedule slip... :P)
Now I'm working retail, and with the immense schedule variation that I have, my Visor is indispensible. As soon as the schedule goes up, it goes in my Visor, and from then on I can plan stuff with no problem, as I always have it with me. I'm especially fond of the weekly view, as it shows me time bars and gives me a good idea at a glance of what's going on.
I often call my Visor my prosthetic brain, and although people laugh, it's true. I have the VisorPhone too, so I can call a friend without their number ever even passing through my mind. Not sure if that's a good thing though...
You're right though, it's great for killing time. This morning I synced up Plucker, and during the boring bits of the meeting I had the Register, the Onion, and Slashdot.
Oh really?
Well, you must have been on crack at the time, because that never actually happened.
I used to work for Sun, and what did happen was a "strategic alliance" between Sun and AOL/Netscape. Yeah, it was so great that whenever we'd call for support they'd refuse to answer the phone if they knew it was us calling.
From what I've heard, there have been orders recently within Sun that no official business is to be done over any AOL products (the Instant Messenger especially). But that's just a rumor.
BTW, Netscape 4 is garbage, as we all know, and the iPlanet server disgusts me. It ate our configuration files once. As far as Netscape 6 goes, why would you use it when you can use the version without ads and branding? (Sorry, had to rant for a paragraph there.)
Actually, it is.
Which means that when a customer asked for specs on a joystick that weren't listed on the box and I went to look the information up for him, I had the answer within seconds but couldn't access it. Oh well. Best Buy got his money.
What kind of "client" is this, anyway, to sit down uninvited and start opening folders?
Cakes and Ale
Office Depot. After getting bodily hurled out of the plummeting tech economy, I've ended up selling furniture for the time being. "It'll show up between 8:30 and 5."
"But..."
"Sorry."
"Can you at least add a note to my file asking them to call first?"
"I'd be happy to, but they often ignore said note. Sorry."
And the funny thing is, sometimes they complain and make noise, but they always knuckle under and do what's convenient for us even though they're paying us money. Suckers.
Except that most secretaries and salespeople I have seen don't know how to use their office package, nor basic OS tasks.
AvantSlash, dude.
Pretty much everyone is allergic to bullets.
Emacs uses Emacs Lisp, not Common Lisp. One of the big differences is that Emacs Lisp is dynamically scoped, while Common Lisp is lexically scoped.