I remember a second year course in which we were required to do each assigment in a specified, different language/platform. It wasn't a language course; we had 2 weeks to become proficient enough in the language to complete the task. Why did we have to deal with these obtuse languages! -- The side effect of this was that at the end, you realized that there weren't 'good' or 'bad' languages, just better languages for given applications.
When I got my first job, coding standards were imposed upon me. The spacing and casing were all WRONG! -- why did I have to do it their way!
Because 80 other engineers were working on the same codebase, and there's nothing worse than having to wade through someone else's "style" when
trying to understand a chunk of code.
Over the years, you will use many platforms and many languages; the good the bad and the very, very ugly; all for very good reasons at the time.
An observation I can make is that none of the platforms I used in first year university exist today. (OK, it appears you will ALWAYS be able to use vi/csh!)
Don't be a tool/language/os zealot. Learn early to be flexible. This industry demands it.
Use your favorite language/IDE/OS at home when you're hacking around. Your employer or customers will invariably use something different. They probably won't be interested in your opinion. The tools you think are great today will make you laugh 5 years from now.
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I remember a second year course in which we were required to do each assigment in a specified, different language/platform. It wasn't a language course; we had 2 weeks to become proficient enough in the language to complete the task. Why did we have to deal with these obtuse languages! -- The side effect of this was that at the end, you realized that there weren't 'good' or 'bad' languages, just better languages for given applications. When I got my first job, coding standards were imposed upon me. The spacing and casing were all WRONG! -- why did I have to do it their way! Because 80 other engineers were working on the same codebase, and there's nothing worse than having to wade through someone else's "style" when trying to understand a chunk of code. Over the years, you will use many platforms and many languages; the good the bad and the very, very ugly; all for very good reasons at the time. An observation I can make is that none of the platforms I used in first year university exist today. (OK, it appears you will ALWAYS be able to use vi/csh!) Don't be a tool/language/os zealot. Learn early to be flexible. This industry demands it. Use your favorite language/IDE/OS at home when you're hacking around. Your employer or customers will invariably use something different. They probably won't be interested in your opinion. The tools you think are great today will make you laugh 5 years from now.