Neither CS nor CIS: MATH
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 5
Get your degree in MATH! It's useful
for anything!
We wouldn't even look at a "CIS" or "MIS" resume. Not enough general poblem solving skills. You shouldn't think of your education as a trade school; any programming language or OS you learn about today would not be used 10 years from now.
(When I was in college, 100 years ago, they were teaching programming courses using IBM 370 Assembly language and PL/I!)
If all you study are programming languages that are likely to be unheard of in a few years, you're wasting your time. Instead, learn Mathematics well. Then you'll be prepared for anything.
If you must get a "computer" degree, certainly go for CS, which is likely to take you to at least Differential Equations. Also be sure to take a lot of music, art, history, and economics courses! All of those have come in very handy when trying to apply my knowledge to different disciplines.
I don't think I ever agreed with a/. posting more.
People grow with experience. Instead of being infatuated with youth, let's find out from the older folks who have seen it all.
(For example, Web form and transaction processing isn't very much differenct from form and transaction processing on IMB 3270 terminals. But most of the expertise from systems where forms were downloaded to a terminal, and the fields were transmitted back when the "TRANSMIT" button was pressesed was lost BECAUSE these 20 year olds didn't bother consulting us old farts.)
Here's a standard Job Interview question I ask:
HOW DOES JPEG work? Very simple, and we all use JPEG images all the time. Yet I've never seen anyone that didn't have a MATH, CS (a real CS degree) or a EE degree answer this for me.
In fact, the same holds true when I hand the candidate a white board marker and ask to show (pseudocode, flow chart, or just diagram it) how LZW compression works.
While I keep an open mind, I never found a person with an MIS degree, or someone with a dotcom pedigree worth hiring.
If you came frome a DOTCOM you'd better have a great resume. It's already 2 1/2 strikes against you.
The typical ex-DOTCOM resume I see reads like this:
- Degree in some watered-down lame-ass field like MIS
- 6 Months at GEOCITIES, and the get laid off
- 3 Months at NETSCAPES, and the laid off
- 6 months at iVillage
-6 months at "Women.com"
etc. Then they claim to have 3 years experience! BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY DID ANYTHING. Never shipped a product, never worked through a product cycle from beginning to end, and everything they were associated with FAILED.
You should NEVER reply to Spam. On the chance that the email is a valid one, replying will just get you more spam.
I have proved this because I use disposable email addresses. Each time I sign up for a new service, or post somewhere, I use a fresh email address. I have my email system set up so it's of the form encodedaddress@mydomain.bob (I won't give the real one here). Any email that goes to mydomain.bob, no matter what address, reaches me.
I have a little web form that lets me turn on the current set of active addresses.
BTW: I have received spam from otherwise reputable companies even after I checked the "Don't send me any messages" button when I signed up for their service! I can tell where it came from because I can look up where I used that particular disposable email address.
...and it's not commercially viable.
The Well really isn't as significant as all these pundits like to think. It wasn't profitable, and merely was a place for freaky Dead-Heads to think they're exchanging profound bits of wisdom.
Actually, on-line communites scare me. Years ago, random kooks couldn't find each other; now they can. It's like building a Tower of Babel, it's a bad idea and will come tumbling down one day.
I remember, years and years ago, playing the same basic game (xyzzy, plover) on a TOP-10. In fact, the source was on a punched tape we got from a DECUS Users Group meeting.
I thought Zork came MUCH later, after even the Apple ][ port of that same TOPS-10 game.
Then again, I'm a senile old fart. Some young web "HTML Programmer" with green hair and a stud through his toungue probably invented it.
I like to teach in Python! A much better language, that has the advantage of no compile phase (confusing to the beginner).
And, it wasn't developed by a self-avowed Pedophile, the way Java was. In all seriousness, Java's association with pedophilia makes it unsuitable for high school classroom use.
The DTMF (or "Touch-Tone") specification provides for 16 keys, not just the 12 that are on most phones.
(When they do appear, they're just labeled with A B C and D, which is confusing with the lettering scheme on digits 2 and 3).
...because they have to field calls from people with broken Macs and messed-up Windows installs when there's nothing really wrong with the Internet connection.
I call rarely; usually when it's verifibly down. I figure I'm being a Good Citizen by reporting early. However, I stopped doing this because it's frustrating.
PacBell's diagnostic algorithm assumes the customer is at fault. (I can't blame them--that's probably usually the case.) So before they'll ping my DSL modem (or whatever they do to verify that they are in fact down), they make me go through a song and dance
Reset your computer, they say. I make keyboard clicking noises and say OK. (My BSD box has been running for 9 months and I'm not about to reset it.)
Now, go to the control panel make sure DHCP is checked . I'll humor them by making more keyboard clicking noises in the background for the appropriate length of time. PacBell tech support will always tell me to set the machine for DHCP (it's in their script) even though I pay for and use a static IP address.
Reset your DSL Modem. OK I say! I guess they assume it's sitting on top of my little Macintosh. (It's in the garage! I'm not about to walk out there.)
Finally, they'll run the circuit check and confirm that, yes, there's a problem in my area and it's down! BUT THEY WON'T DO THAT UNTIL I PLAY THAT LITTLE GAME WITH THEM
HTML is supposed to be display-agnostic. It should defind the structure of the data, but leave the actual rendering to the browser. (Of course, it violates this!)
LaTeX is more of a display language, to define exactly how some text should look.
Of course, I wouldn't mind the web being redone in TeX/LaTex simply becuase I could display $math$ formulae with ease!
Slashdot Mirror
So if a select takes 3 days to complete, you won't have a CLUE as to how to optimize it?
Really? I work for an old, established company that does cool things. Maybe it's time for you to dust off your resume!
Maybe if your're working for some LAME-ASS DOTCOM, but real companies doing cool things do know the difference.
I routinely ask people calculus questions on job interviews!
I'll never hire you!
We wouldn't even look at a "CIS" or "MIS" resume. Not enough general poblem solving skills. You shouldn't think of your education as a trade school; any programming language or OS you learn about today would not be used 10 years from now.
(When I was in college, 100 years ago, they were teaching programming courses using IBM 370 Assembly language and PL/I!)
If all you study are programming languages that are likely to be unheard of in a few years, you're wasting your time. Instead, learn Mathematics well. Then you'll be prepared for anything.
If you must get a "computer" degree, certainly go for CS, which is likely to take you to at least Differential Equations. Also be sure to take a lot of music, art, history, and economics courses! All of those have come in very handy when trying to apply my knowledge to different disciplines.
I don't think I ever agreed with a /. posting more.
People grow with experience. Instead of being infatuated with youth, let's find out from the older folks who have seen it all.
(For example, Web form and transaction processing isn't very much differenct from form and transaction processing on IMB 3270 terminals. But most of the expertise from systems where forms were downloaded to a terminal, and the fields were transmitted back when the "TRANSMIT" button was pressesed was lost BECAUSE these 20 year olds didn't bother consulting us old farts.)
PTEEW! These MIS Boys don't even TASTE good
Here's a standard Job Interview question I ask: HOW DOES JPEG work? Very simple, and we all use JPEG images all the time. Yet I've never seen anyone that didn't have a MATH, CS (a real CS degree) or a EE degree answer this for me.
In fact, the same holds true when I hand the candidate a white board marker and ask to show (pseudocode, flow chart, or just diagram it) how LZW compression works.
While I keep an open mind, I never found a person with an MIS degree, or someone with a dotcom pedigree worth hiring.
The typical ex-DOTCOM resume I see reads like this:
- Degree in some watered-down lame-ass field like MIS
- 6 Months at GEOCITIES, and the get laid off
- 3 Months at NETSCAPES, and the laid off
- 6 months at iVillage
-6 months at "Women.com"
etc. Then they claim to have 3 years experience! BUT THEY NEVER ACTUALLY DID ANYTHING. Never shipped a product, never worked through a product cycle from beginning to end, and everything they were associated with FAILED.
Can't they both be useful? I run them both side-by-side and I'm quite happy with the arrangement.
don't hold your breath waiting for Adobe (which bought Frame from Steve Kirsch for $500Million dollars!) to release a new version.
They are CULPABLE and should be made to pay pay pay!
You're right! The shell and OS on your GAY MACINTOSH are much better!
I have proved this because I use disposable email addresses. Each time I sign up for a new service, or post somewhere, I use a fresh email address. I have my email system set up so it's of the form encodedaddress@mydomain.bob (I won't give the real one here). Any email that goes to mydomain.bob, no matter what address, reaches me.
I have a little web form that lets me turn on the current set of active addresses.
BTW: I have received spam from otherwise reputable companies even after I checked the "Don't send me any messages" button when I signed up for their service! I can tell where it came from because I can look up where I used that particular disposable email address.
...and it's not commercially viable. The Well really isn't as significant as all these pundits like to think. It wasn't profitable, and merely was a place for freaky Dead-Heads to think they're exchanging profound bits of wisdom. Actually, on-line communites scare me. Years ago, random kooks couldn't find each other; now they can. It's like building a Tower of Babel, it's a bad idea and will come tumbling down one day.
I thought Zork came MUCH later, after even the Apple ][ port of that same TOPS-10 game.
Then again, I'm a senile old fart. Some young web "HTML Programmer" with green hair and a stud through his toungue probably invented it.
Take, for example, the inventor of the Java Programming Language, Patrick Naughton
It's also interesting how most people associated with Java are pedophiles, too!
And, it wasn't developed by a self-avowed Pedophile, the way Java was. In all seriousness, Java's association with pedophilia makes it unsuitable for high school classroom use.
My Microwave oven is in the 900 Mhz range! I didn't know they ran any at 3.00 GHz.
The DTMF (or "Touch-Tone") specification provides for 16 keys, not just the 12 that are on most phones. (When they do appear, they're just labeled with A B C and D, which is confusing with the lettering scheme on digits 2 and 3).
I call rarely; usually when it's verifibly down. I figure I'm being a Good Citizen by reporting early. However, I stopped doing this because it's frustrating.
PacBell's diagnostic algorithm assumes the customer is at fault. (I can't blame them--that's probably usually the case.) So before they'll ping my DSL modem (or whatever they do to verify that they are in fact down), they make me go through a song and dance
Reset your computer, they say. I make keyboard clicking noises and say OK. (My BSD box has been running for 9 months and I'm not about to reset it.)
Now, go to the control panel make sure DHCP is checked . I'll humor them by making more keyboard clicking noises in the background for the appropriate length of time. PacBell tech support will always tell me to set the machine for DHCP (it's in their script) even though I pay for and use a static IP address.
Reset your DSL Modem. OK I say! I guess they assume it's sitting on top of my little Macintosh. (It's in the garage! I'm not about to walk out there.)
Finally, they'll run the circuit check and confirm that, yes, there's a problem in my area and it's down! BUT THEY WON'T DO THAT UNTIL I PLAY THAT LITTLE GAME WITH THEM
Maybe they can have a comeback with this technology.
LaTeX is more of a display language, to define exactly how some text should look.
Of course, I wouldn't mind the web being redone in TeX/LaTex simply becuase I could display $math$ formulae with ease!
How can this be a blow to DEMOCRACY?
...in Fuckedcompany? They're really struggling for material now!
Our government, who is trying to shut down Microsoft, shouldn't be STEALING MONEY from Microsoft, too.