How to build software is to be sure. I'm in comptuter science though, and I've yet to see a CS program that teaches their undergraduates UML, or even half of the stuff that they do in industry.
I think that the better half of the stuff that they tinker with in industry right at the moment isn't proven enough, and some of it is probably barking up the wrong tree. For instance, I hope they never teach extreme programming in a college classroom.
As for design patterns... eh, I think that an undergrad's time is better spent learning algorithms and data structures. There's only so much you can fit into a CS program, I think that modern CS programs are pretty good. I don't really think that the agile methods belong in a computer science curriculum either. There's a big block of "something else" that comes with being in industry, but just doesn't have much to do with programming.
In terms of investment engineering/science/math are the drivers that move society forward. Art, music, politics, are all great, but a painting does not have the same impact as sequencing a gene.
That statement invalidates the impact of those fields and, despite the fact that I am in a scientific field, I think that that just isn't true. Consider the impact of Capitalism/Communism/Socialism/Democracy/The Republic.
No going this route sends the message that your expectations for group x are higher than what currently exists, and you are trying to address the social roadblocks that might be preventing the group from fully realizing their potential.
Removing the roadblocks is great. I'm all for removing any roadblock in the way of anyone's progress. I disagree though. "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because there aren't enough female engineers..." or even "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because the number of women entering engineering falls short of our expectations..." is a negative message.
Closing your eyes and pretending there isn't a problem won't solve it. The issues of social stigma are there
I'm not closing my eyes, I'm suggesting that there are better solutions. I don't see cramming IT down the collective throats of high school students as effective. How about just showing them that you care what they're interested in, and supporting their interests?
What is being done is pointing out that technical jobs aren't like they are sterotyped. Apart from social perceptions, there are perceptions of "good ole boy" networks, that you won't be able to become successful because you don't fit in. Bringing in successful women/minorities, helps tear down those misconceptions. I've mentored hispanic students steering them towards engineering. They had the talent, however, they were discouraged by misconceptions. They were intimidated by silly things like not fitting in with peers because they weren't devoted to Star Trek and computer games, as well as more techinical things like not wanting to live in a cube solving math problems all day. Explaining the hands on of working on machines, the types of problems that you solve, even telling them about my department in college having a soccer team, eased their worries.
Awesome. My initial concern wasn't really that students with a talent for engineering are directed toward it. I would like every barrier broken down that can be. My concern is that engineering is blanketed over education systems as the route that students should pursue, leading to a foreclosure in their decision of what to do with their lives that leads them away from their prefered careers. If someone would rather be an artist, I think that they should be an artist.
If you don't change anything, most likely nothing will change.
I agree. I didn't suggest not changing anything.
I have to admit that I hate discussing matters such as this though. I should not have entered this conversation. I am an open minded person who thinks that everyone should be treated equally. I feel, however, that if I don't say what people want me to say, that I'll be painted as some sort of racist/sexist/bigotted neo-nazi. I'm not one. I acknowledge that descrimination exists... I just don't think that it needs to be balanced out with solutions that don't solve anything. It sounds like in your experience, you helped a lot of kids... I'd rather see something like that than hearding all of the girls with a reasonable GPA into an auditorium and telling them that they should go into computers at age 14!
In university, a lot of what you listed in your last sentence isn't really taught.
It's not that it isn't valuable, but Computer Science is just that... the science. Agile methods and design patterns aren't part of that. Big O and algorithms are.
I don't think that this is a valid route to accomplish this.
I think that this route sends the message that other fields are not as good.
I think that this route also sends the message that your expectations from (group x... in this case women) are low.
I think that if all of the silly pretense was lost, that people would just get on with their lives and do the right thing. I think that building up lots of programs and barriers sends the message "we want more girls in engineering (...because girls are intimidated by it)."
It's completely backwards, it's discriminatory policies ("we don't think you'll do this on your own, here's a helping hand"), engineered by people who are trying to make up for their past insensitivities.
If we dropped this nonesense now, in 2050, it would be considered an insult to say "we want to encourage women (who wouldn't otherwise go into math and science) to go into math and science."
My point is that if you're not interested in engineering, there are easier ways to make money than to go into engineering.
I know many many engineers who go back for their MBAs to make more money. They enjoy engineering, but see management as the clear path to more money.
Look at project management and program management. If you're on a small team of programmers, there are almost as many managers as there are programmers on the team. I don't that this is efficient, but it's true of many companies. On my last 2 projects, management outnumbered programmers and technical personnel.
If you look at the fact that the managers are in charge of those engineers, and that being in charge of someone quite possibly means making more money, management was the right route to go... if your goal was to make money.
If you genuinely enjoy engineering, then yes, you should become an engineer. Like I said, I'm a CS grad student, back in school after a few years in industry, and I would never look back. I look forward to making good money in my career, but even more forward to what I will do with my career. I don't think that people who don't truely enjoy engineering will have such an outcome.
To further follow up on this... I went into Computer Science. I couldn't be happier with the field. I want to get my PhD, in fact. I'm in graduate school now, and I love it.
I, however, wanted to be in computer science when I was a kid. I spent much of high school learning about programming, robotics, and AI. I went to Jefferson Lab for their series of lectures aimed at high school students and loved every second of it.
So, this brings about the question. If a kid is going to Model UN, are you going to sit there and discourage them from studying the humanities because you want them in IT, or are you going to leave them alone and let them grow up to be an ambassador?
I'll go ahead and respond again, just in case my argument got lost in there.
The point isn't that IT isn't hot. It is. The point is that high schools seem to push everyone towards it.
The result of this is that you get a lot of people going down a career path that they don't actually want to be on. You take some 9th grader, and tell them that the career that they are interested in is "nice," but today, we're going to explore the great future you could have in IT. Soon, everyone thinks that IT is the career for them, or, at least, that's the one that the smart kids get into, or that's what they're supposed to do, or that's where the money is.
I talk to all kinds of people who think that IT/Programming/Computer Science is a great, high paying career. That's why CS people should go into the field. The fact is, that the guy who went into business school, for the "to make money" reason, did better than the guy who went into Computer Science "to make money."
As for smarts, sure, you can be very smart and go into IT... or Political Science... or Business... or Architecture... or Music. Life as a musician may be hard... but we're not outsourcing all of our music to foreign countries. If that's what the kid wants to do, why are you telling them that they should go into Math/Science/IT.
For that matter, why are you telling women specifically to go into the field? I agree that there are fewer women in CS (and I wish that the ratio was better... it's hard finding a date in the department), but telling a bunch of high school women "you should go into IT to even out the ratio" is akin to saying "all of the jobs that you'd rather pursue are girly jobs, you need to go into IT to keep up with the boys."
You should just provide the best environment possible for kids to become the best whatever they want to be that they can be. You should get rid of sexism by not practicing sexism. You should get rid of racism by not practicing racism. You should let kids pursue a career path that they enjoy so they don't become 20-something slackers that don't have anything to do with their lives, because they foreclosed on the opportunities that they wanted to pursue, because you told them that all of the money was in computers.
You invest tons and tons of money and resources into telling people that they should go pursue a career in the sciences.
What about the people who really wanted a career in the humanities? You totally read statement #2 wrong. It's not a relationship between IT and math and science, it's a relationship between IT/Math/Science and every other field that there is. The emphasis is always "we need better engineers." Last time I checked, we didn't need any more engineers. In fact, the field was so glutted that salaries were going down and jobs were getting outsourced. There are plenty of other fields than math and science to go into, so why the emphasis on math and science?
What I don't understand is why schools encourage people to pursue IT as a career.
1) Being in IT is not as profitable as being in management (from what I've seen). 2) Encouraging people into math and science and IT invalidates perfectly valid career paths. 3) Colleges (in my experience) have droves of people who sign up for computer science their Freshman year, and then change out to another major because they find out what the major is really like.
Why do you need to encourage anybody into a particular field in high school? Shouldn't they decide for themselves what they want to do? If you're going to encourage them into a field, why not one that's more profitable. Tell them to become architects or businesspeople. Business is where the $$ is.
Nope. Belabored that too long. I was going to say that this is silly... that this isn't front page news.
Perhaps that it was cracked is big news.
Perhaps if they got sued, bigger news.
Pulling a silent file off of the network, and putting out an act of defiance to see what happens. Nice.
Lets read through the comments, "oh, what will those jackasse lawyers do..." "he typed from his iBook."
If you think that Apple will do something that you dissaprove of, then stop buying their product. Nobody made you buy iTunes. If you don't want DRM'd products, then don't buy them, buy a stack of CD's and rip them yourself, and stick them in your MP3 player.
If you think that these guys are jerks for suing the guy, wait for them to do so.
Alpha: Unit Testing: The thing that programmers do constantly. Instant gratification in the sense that you know that your code works as you planned it would.
Beta: System Testing: Usually pushed off onto the client, because you just KNOW that it's not your code that screwed up, it's the programmer x's buggy code!
It really is much better to start wars that will get everyone in your country killed... isn't it?
I mean, wouldn't it be far better if we started off WWIII... kicking it off with aggression towards NK, than then getting the Chinese army to come in and start invading out allies.
Yes, we really should have jumped into NK instead of war with Iraq. Who would want to miss out on the massive killing that that would have caused? Especially if they have nukes!
Yeah, I noticed now the price of gas really dropped when we invaded Iraq. It's a good thing we did that, now that the price to fill my car is $30... down from the $20 it was a couple years ago, before the war.
I guess that that's just inflation, since everything else is 150% as expensive as it used to be.
I guess that the reason that North Korea wouldn't sell nukes is because of the amount of evidence left over after one goes off? Shit, they sell everything else to terrorists.
Once, in a high school science fair, I entered a programming project. The project was great. I made it all the way to regional. In regional, a project that I didn't think was as good as mine placed first, so I took second (and didn't move on to states as I recall, perhaps third?)
Anyway, I printed out my source code for the display. I hadn't done this before. On the drive home, I remembered that I had profanities as the names of a few of my variables.
Slashdot Mirror
So, you developed software for Windows for years, and had a problem when Visual Studio was your development platform?
C# isn't a terribly bad language as languages go, and while I won't comment on VC++, VC# is just fine to work with.
What was your previous platform that you were so attached to... for Windows development?
How to build software is to be sure. I'm in comptuter science though, and I've yet to see a CS program that teaches their undergraduates UML, or even half of the stuff that they do in industry.
I think that the better half of the stuff that they tinker with in industry right at the moment isn't proven enough, and some of it is probably barking up the wrong tree. For instance, I hope they never teach extreme programming in a college classroom.
As for design patterns... eh, I think that an undergrad's time is better spent learning algorithms and data structures. There's only so much you can fit into a CS program, I think that modern CS programs are pretty good. I don't really think that the agile methods belong in a computer science curriculum either. There's a big block of "something else" that comes with being in industry, but just doesn't have much to do with programming.
In terms of investment engineering/science/math are the drivers that move society forward. Art, music, politics, are all great, but a painting does not have the same impact as sequencing a gene.
That statement invalidates the impact of those fields and, despite the fact that I am in a scientific field, I think that that just isn't true. Consider the impact of Capitalism/Communism/Socialism/Democracy/The Republic.
No going this route sends the message that your expectations for group x are higher than what currently exists, and you are trying to address the social roadblocks that might be preventing the group from fully realizing their potential.
Removing the roadblocks is great. I'm all for removing any roadblock in the way of anyone's progress. I disagree though. "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because there aren't enough female engineers..." or even "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because the number of women entering engineering falls short of our expectations..." is a negative message.
Closing your eyes and pretending there isn't a problem won't solve it. The issues of social stigma are there
I'm not closing my eyes, I'm suggesting that there are better solutions. I don't see cramming IT down the collective throats of high school students as effective. How about just showing them that you care what they're interested in, and supporting their interests?
What is being done is pointing out that technical jobs aren't like they are sterotyped. Apart from social perceptions, there are perceptions of "good ole boy" networks, that you won't be able to become successful because you don't fit in. Bringing in successful women/minorities, helps tear down those misconceptions.
I've mentored hispanic students steering them towards engineering. They had the talent, however, they were discouraged by misconceptions. They were intimidated by silly things like not fitting in with peers because they weren't devoted to Star Trek and computer games, as well as more techinical things like not wanting to live in a cube solving math problems all day. Explaining the hands on of working on machines, the types of problems that you solve, even telling them about my department in college having a soccer team, eased their worries.
Awesome. My initial concern wasn't really that students with a talent for engineering are directed toward it. I would like every barrier broken down that can be. My concern is that engineering is blanketed over education systems as the route that students should pursue, leading to a foreclosure in their decision of what to do with their lives that leads them away from their prefered careers. If someone would rather be an artist, I think that they should be an artist.
If you don't change anything, most likely nothing will change.
I agree. I didn't suggest not changing anything.
I have to admit that I hate discussing matters such as this though. I should not have entered this conversation. I am an open minded person who thinks that everyone should be treated equally. I feel, however, that if I don't say what people want me to say, that I'll be painted as some sort of racist/sexist/bigotted neo-nazi. I'm not one. I acknowledge that descrimination exists... I just don't think that it needs to be balanced out with solutions that don't solve anything. It sounds like in your experience, you helped a lot of kids... I'd rather see something like that than hearding all of the girls with a reasonable GPA into an auditorium and telling them that they should go into computers at age 14!
Discouraging men is just as discriminatory, don't you think?
Perhaps we should stop worrying about the gender gap, and just let people choose what they would like to do based on what they... like.
Quite possibly true, but if you don't enjoy your field, perhaps you're better off doing something else.
That's my point.
If a guidance counselor is going to suggest something else. They might as well suggest something where the money is.
In university, a lot of what you listed in your last sentence isn't really taught.
It's not that it isn't valuable, but Computer Science is just that... the science. Agile methods and design patterns aren't part of that. Big O and algorithms are.
I don't think that this is a valid route to accomplish this.
I think that this route sends the message that other fields are not as good.
I think that this route also sends the message that your expectations from (group x... in this case women) are low.
I think that if all of the silly pretense was lost, that people would just get on with their lives and do the right thing. I think that building up lots of programs and barriers sends the message "we want more girls in engineering (...because girls are intimidated by it)."
It's completely backwards, it's discriminatory policies ("we don't think you'll do this on your own, here's a helping hand"), engineered by people who are trying to make up for their past insensitivities.
If we dropped this nonesense now, in 2050, it would be considered an insult to say "we want to encourage women (who wouldn't otherwise go into math and science) to go into math and science."
My point is that if you're not interested in engineering, there are easier ways to make money than to go into engineering.
I know many many engineers who go back for their MBAs to make more money. They enjoy engineering, but see management as the clear path to more money.
Look at project management and program management. If you're on a small team of programmers, there are almost as many managers as there are programmers on the team. I don't that this is efficient, but it's true of many companies. On my last 2 projects, management outnumbered programmers and technical personnel.
If you look at the fact that the managers are in charge of those engineers, and that being in charge of someone quite possibly means making more money, management was the right route to go... if your goal was to make money.
If you genuinely enjoy engineering, then yes, you should become an engineer. Like I said, I'm a CS grad student, back in school after a few years in industry, and I would never look back. I look forward to making good money in my career, but even more forward to what I will do with my career. I don't think that people who don't truely enjoy engineering will have such an outcome.
stigmata
I think you chose the wrong word there bro.
To further follow up on this... I went into Computer Science. I couldn't be happier with the field. I want to get my PhD, in fact. I'm in graduate school now, and I love it.
I, however, wanted to be in computer science when I was a kid. I spent much of high school learning about programming, robotics, and AI. I went to Jefferson Lab for their series of lectures aimed at high school students and loved every second of it.
So, this brings about the question. If a kid is going to Model UN, are you going to sit there and discourage them from studying the humanities because you want them in IT, or are you going to leave them alone and let them grow up to be an ambassador?
I'll go ahead and respond again, just in case my argument got lost in there.
The point isn't that IT isn't hot. It is. The point is that high schools seem to push everyone towards it.
The result of this is that you get a lot of people going down a career path that they don't actually want to be on. You take some 9th grader, and tell them that the career that they are interested in is "nice," but today, we're going to explore the great future you could have in IT. Soon, everyone thinks that IT is the career for them, or, at least, that's the one that the smart kids get into, or that's what they're supposed to do, or that's where the money is.
I talk to all kinds of people who think that IT/Programming/Computer Science is a great, high paying career. That's why CS people should go into the field. The fact is, that the guy who went into business school, for the "to make money" reason, did better than the guy who went into Computer Science "to make money."
As for smarts, sure, you can be very smart and go into IT... or Political Science... or Business... or Architecture... or Music. Life as a musician may be hard... but we're not outsourcing all of our music to foreign countries. If that's what the kid wants to do, why are you telling them that they should go into Math/Science/IT.
For that matter, why are you telling women specifically to go into the field? I agree that there are fewer women in CS (and I wish that the ratio was better... it's hard finding a date in the department), but telling a bunch of high school women "you should go into IT to even out the ratio" is akin to saying "all of the jobs that you'd rather pursue are girly jobs, you need to go into IT to keep up with the boys."
You should just provide the best environment possible for kids to become the best whatever they want to be that they can be. You should get rid of sexism by not practicing sexism. You should get rid of racism by not practicing racism. You should let kids pursue a career path that they enjoy so they don't become 20-something slackers that don't have anything to do with their lives, because they foreclosed on the opportunities that they wanted to pursue, because you told them that all of the money was in computers.
Perfectly simple.
You invest tons and tons of money and resources into telling people that they should go pursue a career in the sciences.
What about the people who really wanted a career in the humanities? You totally read statement #2 wrong. It's not a relationship between IT and math and science, it's a relationship between IT/Math/Science and every other field that there is. The emphasis is always "we need better engineers." Last time I checked, we didn't need any more engineers. In fact, the field was so glutted that salaries were going down and jobs were getting outsourced. There are plenty of other fields than math and science to go into, so why the emphasis on math and science?
What I don't understand is why schools encourage people to pursue IT as a career.
1) Being in IT is not as profitable as being in management (from what I've seen).
2) Encouraging people into math and science and IT invalidates perfectly valid career paths.
3) Colleges (in my experience) have droves of people who sign up for computer science their Freshman year, and then change out to another major because they find out what the major is really like.
Why do you need to encourage anybody into a particular field in high school? Shouldn't they decide for themselves what they want to do? If you're going to encourage them into a field, why not one that's more profitable. Tell them to become architects or businesspeople. Business is where the $$ is.
Nope. Belabored that too long. I was going to say that this is silly... that this isn't front page news.
Perhaps that it was cracked is big news.
Perhaps if they got sued, bigger news.
Pulling a silent file off of the network, and putting out an act of defiance to see what happens. Nice.
Lets read through the comments, "oh, what will those jackasse lawyers do..." "he typed from his iBook."
If you think that Apple will do something that you dissaprove of, then stop buying their product. Nobody made you buy iTunes. If you don't want DRM'd products, then don't buy them, buy a stack of CD's and rip them yourself, and stick them in your MP3 player.
If you think that these guys are jerks for suing the guy, wait for them to do so.
420th post.
Hrmm, if you want to mix things up a bit.
Alpha: Unit Testing: The thing that programmers do constantly. Instant gratification in the sense that you know that your code works as you planned it would.
Beta: System Testing: Usually pushed off onto the client, because you just KNOW that it's not your code that screwed up, it's the programmer x's buggy code!
I suppose that the Illuminati planned this out as well?
Since they invest heavily in my computer science department... I bite my tongue and nod a bit.
Certainly, but it's not oil. Dropping a couple billion dollars on a war for Iraqi oil that we won't keep is pointless.
Sticking a base in the middle of hostile territory isn't a bad little objective though.
It wasn't about oil.
Then again, other countries resisting us was partly because they were getting free oil in the oil for food program.
If other countries were really that upset about it, then we would have seen their tanks on the Iraqi border.
It really is much better to start wars that will get everyone in your country killed... isn't it?
I mean, wouldn't it be far better if we started off WWIII... kicking it off with aggression towards NK, than then getting the Chinese army to come in and start invading out allies.
Yes, we really should have jumped into NK instead of war with Iraq. Who would want to miss out on the massive killing that that would have caused? Especially if they have nukes!
Yeah, I noticed now the price of gas really dropped when we invaded Iraq. It's a good thing we did that, now that the price to fill my car is $30... down from the $20 it was a couple years ago, before the war.
I guess that that's just inflation, since everything else is 150% as expensive as it used to be.
Why?
I guess that the reason that North Korea wouldn't sell nukes is because of the amount of evidence left over after one goes off? Shit, they sell everything else to terrorists.
Once, in a high school science fair, I entered a programming project. The project was great. I made it all the way to regional. In regional, a project that I didn't think was as good as mine placed first, so I took second (and didn't move on to states as I recall, perhaps third?)
Anyway, I printed out my source code for the display. I hadn't done this before. On the drive home, I remembered that I had profanities as the names of a few of my variables.
About 11.