I really do not believe anyone can be over exposed to assembly language and all and all it is a good thing that schools teach it. I believe any school which has or plans on phasing out assembly language is doing a great injustice to their students and to the corporations unfortunate to hire those students.
I myself have learned two and a half different languages at Ohio State and am trying to find time this summer around work to learn a third. To be honest it is almost a "cool geek" thing for me now. I mean everyone and their mother knows C++ or can create a website. Those just aren't as geek as they used to be.
The two u-controllers (microcontrollers for the slow people) that I learned assembly on are the Motorola 68HC11 and on a fairly standard PIC, which one exactly I worked with eludes me at the moment. The half of a language I know is from the MIPS64 family of processors. I only know "half" because I sort of picked it up as a result of another class and have never actually used it myself.
The language I am hoping to learn is the x86 assembly language. It seems to me that of all the u-controllers and processors the one that is by far the most common is the x86 architecture.
I can think of several good reasons for individuals to learn assembly language:
Quicker and Neater then most compiled codes
Above makes them better for fast embedded systems
They teach good programming skill
Can be more powerful, especially when you know how to use it
It isn't exactly as much needed since most u-controllers have C++ compilers written for them. However, sometimes this compiled code is not as fast if it would have been written in assembly by the user.
I hope for the sake of programmers and Electrical/Computer Engineers (like myself) that assembly stays around for a long time. It is still the basis for design of any microprocessor and so long as they are using assembly at a basic level, then people need to know how to use it.
Tribes 2 for some reason had a problem gaining a great following. Many of the old fanboys of Tribes complained they weren't the same game (*sings* Cry Me a River *sings*). But to be honest the game modes, maps, and graphics made Tribes 2 a great game at the time. It is one of the few games to appropriately combine normal combat with vehicle combat. (Battlefield and UT 2004 being the others)
I still play Tribes 2 a lot and no matter how much they change the game I will buy Tribes: Vengeance. I think some fanboys need to take the opportunity that these free games provide to see how good Tribes 2 really was/is and they may just see that the changes to Tribes were well worth it.
We will see more changes from Tribes: Vengeance (Dynamix *RIP). However, a game on the UT engine which already has a lot of the vehicle physics in place should make for another great Tribes game and I cannot wait to see it.
Music and art are about as essential to education as the core. Do we really want to become an even bigger mass of uncultured people. Drama is borderline but in most systems already falls under the domain of man english departments.
I believe that sports needs to be more privately funded. If students want to pay then to some degree make them pay to play. Students who are serious about sports won't mind dumping a hundred dollars or so and it would help keep quitters out.
Also back to the music issue, we have all those studies (true or false) that people who play instruments do better in school and what not. Buying instruments and the lessons to learn them is already expensive enough. Bands in high school are typically already well funded privately from fund raising.
I do believe that there needs to be more funding for these types of things in school. However, cutting them out all together takes any fun that is left in school out of it. We need the diversity many high schools offer in order to push students towards the right college degrees. Otherwise we wind up with more 6 yr college students who don't have their Masters degree.
It does simply boil down in the end to a total lack of government concern about the education system.
Most states have lowered the amount of funding they are providing to education at all levels.
From K-12 through the college system the amount of funding is in constant decline and is doing nothing more than hurting the youth of america today and hurting america as a whole in the future.
If that were not enough, those students who are actually prone to creative and/or intelligent thought are often stifled by a system that looks more like the Special Olympics with the every student is equal approach that prevents them from advancing at the proper pace.
5 Ways to Improve the system:
1. More available private school systems
2. More funding for education programs
3. Allow students with talent to advance
4. Advanced schooling for aforementioned students
5. In college, more research opportunities for undergrads.
The last one may seem a bit iffy but I can state from personal experience that I would have loved to get more time actually working on stuff in my field and be left out because I wasn't a grad student yet.
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I myself have learned two and a half different languages at Ohio State and am trying to find time this summer around work to learn a third. To be honest it is almost a "cool geek" thing for me now. I mean everyone and their mother knows C++ or can create a website. Those just aren't as geek as they used to be.
The two u-controllers (microcontrollers for the slow people) that I learned assembly on are the Motorola 68HC11 and on a fairly standard PIC, which one exactly I worked with eludes me at the moment. The half of a language I know is from the MIPS64 family of processors. I only know "half" because I sort of picked it up as a result of another class and have never actually used it myself.
The language I am hoping to learn is the x86 assembly language. It seems to me that of all the u-controllers and processors the one that is by far the most common is the x86 architecture. I can think of several good reasons for individuals to learn assembly language:
- Quicker and Neater then most compiled codes
- Above makes them better for fast embedded systems
- They teach good programming skill
- Can be more powerful, especially when you know how to use it
It isn't exactly as much needed since most u-controllers have C++ compilers written for them. However, sometimes this compiled code is not as fast if it would have been written in assembly by the user. I hope for the sake of programmers and Electrical/Computer Engineers (like myself) that assembly stays around for a long time. It is still the basis for design of any microprocessor and so long as they are using assembly at a basic level, then people need to know how to use it.Tribes 2 for some reason had a problem gaining a great following. Many of the old fanboys of Tribes complained they weren't the same game (*sings* Cry Me a River *sings*). But to be honest the game modes, maps, and graphics made Tribes 2 a great game at the time. It is one of the few games to appropriately combine normal combat with vehicle combat. (Battlefield and UT 2004 being the others)
I still play Tribes 2 a lot and no matter how much they change the game I will buy Tribes: Vengeance. I think some fanboys need to take the opportunity that these free games provide to see how good Tribes 2 really was/is and they may just see that the changes to Tribes were well worth it.
We will see more changes from Tribes: Vengeance (Dynamix *RIP). However, a game on the UT engine which already has a lot of the vehicle physics in place should make for another great Tribes game and I cannot wait to see it.
Music and art are about as essential to education as the core. Do we really want to become an even bigger mass of uncultured people. Drama is borderline but in most systems already falls under the domain of man english departments.
I believe that sports needs to be more privately funded. If students want to pay then to some degree make them pay to play. Students who are serious about sports won't mind dumping a hundred dollars or so and it would help keep quitters out.
Also back to the music issue, we have all those studies (true or false) that people who play instruments do better in school and what not. Buying instruments and the lessons to learn them is already expensive enough. Bands in high school are typically already well funded privately from fund raising.
I do believe that there needs to be more funding for these types of things in school. However, cutting them out all together takes any fun that is left in school out of it. We need the diversity many high schools offer in order to push students towards the right college degrees. Otherwise we wind up with more 6 yr college students who don't have their Masters degree.
It does simply boil down in the end to a total lack of government concern about the education system.
Most states have lowered the amount of funding they are providing to education at all levels.
From K-12 through the college system the amount of funding is in constant decline and is doing nothing more than hurting the youth of america today and hurting america as a whole in the future.
If that were not enough, those students who are actually prone to creative and/or intelligent thought are often stifled by a system that looks more like the Special Olympics with the every student is equal approach that prevents them from advancing at the proper pace.
5 Ways to Improve the system:
1. More available private school systems
2. More funding for education programs
3. Allow students with talent to advance
4. Advanced schooling for aforementioned students
5. In college, more research opportunities for undergrads.
The last one may seem a bit iffy but I can state from personal experience that I would have loved to get more time actually working on stuff in my field and be left out because I wasn't a grad student yet.