I have a Bachelors in CS myself, and could honestly say that if I had all my limbs hacked off, I could still effectively count how many times an employer has asked me to write a compiler. Its just not a "real-world" skill.
That being said, I have also worked with many IS majors. We refered to IS at my school as "CS for dummies". Basically, they had mostly the same general programming classes, but while were were in ODE, Fundamental Physics, and Calc 3, they took Intro to Business, Economics, and Business Writing courses. There is nothing wrong with this track, but I can honestly say that the quality of people who enrolled in IS over CS were not of the same caliper.
I am not knocking IS at all...most of my best friends were IS majors, but they are not the geekiest of the geeks. While I was building a mame machine or some other geeky project, my IS friends just looked at me like "Why would you want to do that?"
Now, fast forward to today. I am a Software Developer, and I still work with IS majors. And even though I have never written another compiler since school, I HAVE used the skills I learned in doing so, like languange parsing. Plus, knowing how the internals of a compiler works helps understand what certain errors mean. The same is true for most of the other classes.
I guess my point is, take what you can from the classes you are in. The knowledge may not be directly applicable, but you can apply anything.
Your argument is all wrong. Creating M$ Word supported formats in OpenOffice DOES make people not want to use Word, and thus stops the revenue into M$'s pocket. If M$ decided to put an EULA in its next version of Word stating no one could reverse engineer its products, I can think of a lot of people who are screwed.
Lets take this one step further...SMB, Exchange EMail, AIM, M$ Messenger, Yahoo, and the list goes on. As stated before, these were all reverse-engineered. These would not exist if someone didn't put a sniffer on them, figured out the order of packets, and started coding. This is no different than what the bnetd people did to the Battle.net code, I would suspect. In no way did they provide copies of the client, and any piracy of those clients were done by the users, not the developers.
What surprises me most is the sheer number of people who are OK with this. Would you be ok if Ford decided to put proprietary fuel connections on their cars, forcing you to use their "prefered" gas stations?
And shouldn't I be free to use something as I see fit? Can't I mod my car if I want too? If I buy an axe for wood, but use it to split pumpkins, does the company who made the axe have the right to tell me what I can and can't do with it. I can't see how companies can force me to accept their EULA if it tells me how I am to enjoy their product, and what I can and can't do with it. And what happens if I don't...would they give me a full refund on my purchase? I doubt it.
Many of the things we take for granite today stemed from collaboration and integration. Both get stimied with policies like the DMCA.
I would rather see you teleported to the bottom of the sea than to loose my TV, and my TV is a piece of shit. What does that say about me?
Re:Rumors of even *more* advanced stuff..
on
First HDTV Camcorder
·
· Score: 4, Informative
My wife is a professional photographer, and, um, couple of problems...
1) Nikon sucks for digital. I know SEVERAL people who have the D100 and HATE IT. Controls suck, image is not white balanced well...pretty much sucks. Canon makes a MUCH beter camera. 2) Canon 10d is $1500, 6.25 mega pixels, and is an AWSOME camera. Magenesium-alloy body, great low-light focusing, awsome controls. Oh, and its not over $6k, as you suggested. 3) Kodak makes a 14d that is 14 mega pixels, has great color, and is under $4k last I saw. And guess what, its build using the Nikon body! Wow, that probably means it will accept your Nikon lens...hmmm. 4) I know PLENTY of pros that use the Epson 1270, 1280, 2000, 2200 for printing photo-realistic images. Many times, unless you bust the magnifying glass out, you cant even tell its not printed optically. Then there is the whole idea that the labs, like Millers, actually print digital images for less than negatives. 5) Most labs, including Walmart, actually scan 35mm film and print it on the same equipment that they print digital. Its called a Fuji Fronteer...look it up.
We (my wife and I) are members of several professional photographic orgs, and about 75% of everyone I know have either already ditched film, or they are contemplating the idea. The work-flow for digital is a lot quicker, and nothing beats the instant "polaroid" that is provided to ensure you that you got the shot correct. We still have several film cameras, including the Canon EOS 3, Elan IIe...even a Bonica ETRsi 645. They have now stayed on the shelf for the 3 years we have been digital.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a Bachelors in CS myself, and could honestly say that if I had all my limbs hacked off, I could still effectively count how many times an employer has asked me to write a compiler. Its just not a "real-world" skill.
That being said, I have also worked with many IS majors. We refered to IS at my school as "CS for dummies". Basically, they had mostly the same general programming classes, but while were were in ODE, Fundamental Physics, and Calc 3, they took Intro to Business, Economics, and Business Writing courses. There is nothing wrong with this track, but I can honestly say that the quality of people who enrolled in IS over CS were not of the same caliper.
I am not knocking IS at all...most of my best friends were IS majors, but they are not the geekiest of the geeks. While I was building a mame machine or some other geeky project, my IS friends just looked at me like "Why would you want to do that?"
Now, fast forward to today. I am a Software Developer, and I still work with IS majors. And even though I have never written another compiler since school, I HAVE used the skills I learned in doing so, like languange parsing. Plus, knowing how the internals of a compiler works helps understand what certain errors mean. The same is true for most of the other classes.
I guess my point is, take what you can from the classes you are in. The knowledge may not be directly applicable, but you can apply anything.
Your argument is all wrong. Creating M$ Word supported formats in OpenOffice DOES make people not want to use Word, and thus stops the revenue into M$'s pocket. If M$ decided to put an EULA in its next version of Word stating no one could reverse engineer its products, I can think of a lot of people who are screwed.
Lets take this one step further...SMB, Exchange EMail, AIM, M$ Messenger, Yahoo, and the list goes on. As stated before, these were all reverse-engineered. These would not exist if someone didn't put a sniffer on them, figured out the order of packets, and started coding. This is no different than what the bnetd people did to the Battle.net code, I would suspect. In no way did they provide copies of the client, and any piracy of those clients were done by the users, not the developers.
What surprises me most is the sheer number of people who are OK with this. Would you be ok if Ford decided to put proprietary fuel connections on their cars, forcing you to use their "prefered" gas stations?
And shouldn't I be free to use something as I see fit? Can't I mod my car if I want too? If I buy an axe for wood, but use it to split pumpkins, does the company who made the axe have the right to tell me what I can and can't do with it. I can't see how companies can force me to accept their EULA if it tells me how I am to enjoy their product, and what I can and can't do with it. And what happens if I don't...would they give me a full refund on my purchase? I doubt it.
Many of the things we take for granite today stemed from collaboration and integration. Both get stimied with policies like the DMCA.
I would rather see you teleported to the bottom of the sea than to loose my TV, and my TV is a piece of shit. What does that say about me?
My wife is a professional photographer, and, um, couple of problems...
1) Nikon sucks for digital. I know SEVERAL people who have the D100 and HATE IT. Controls suck, image is not white balanced well...pretty much sucks. Canon makes a MUCH beter camera.
2) Canon 10d is $1500, 6.25 mega pixels, and is an AWSOME camera. Magenesium-alloy body, great low-light focusing, awsome controls. Oh, and its not over $6k, as you suggested.
3) Kodak makes a 14d that is 14 mega pixels, has great color, and is under $4k last I saw. And guess what, its build using the Nikon body! Wow, that probably means it will accept your Nikon lens...hmmm.
4) I know PLENTY of pros that use the Epson 1270, 1280, 2000, 2200 for printing photo-realistic images. Many times, unless you bust the magnifying glass out, you cant even tell its not printed optically. Then there is the whole idea that the labs, like Millers, actually print digital images for less than negatives.
5) Most labs, including Walmart, actually scan 35mm film and print it on the same equipment that they print digital. Its called a Fuji Fronteer...look it up.
We (my wife and I) are members of several professional photographic orgs, and about 75% of everyone I know have either already ditched film, or they are contemplating the idea. The work-flow for digital is a lot quicker, and nothing beats the instant "polaroid" that is provided to ensure you that you got the shot correct. We still have several film cameras, including the Canon EOS 3, Elan IIe...even a Bonica ETRsi 645. They have now stayed on the shelf for the 3 years we have been digital.
Get with the times...