Reply to: Computer grads are useless.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

When I did my degree, 20 years ago, we covered, off the top of my head,

Programming - modula-2, polymorphism, abstract data types
Programming the M68000
Hardware architecture
Software architecture
Algorithm design
Computability - Lamdba calculus, halting problem,
Functional languages - Miranda
Compiler writing - yacc, lexx, and then writing a simple on in C
Formal systems - provability, predicate logic, communicating sequential processes
.
.
.

Very little of which is relevant to what I do now - but was a very good grounding to begin doing it.

What's in a computer science course nowadays?

I graduated in 2005 (Uni of Manchester), in first year we did:

ARM - writing assembly code
JAVA - loads and load of it
Wishy washy computer and professional stuff
Discrete Mathematics - Absolutely solid
Networking principles
Artificial Intelligence
Cant rememeber the rest

In second year we did half a module on each of C/C++ and loads more Java. So in total about 5% of CS was low level stuff.

I think it's good to know about it so you appreciate it, but practically speaking it has been of no use whatsoever. 2 years of Java was useful though as I have done C# programming and didn't need any introduction to OOP.

[scooterscot]

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed ? The Register

The sheer ignorance of newbie CS grads still manages to astound me. If you’re one reading this, you’re actually above average.

And I'm just an engineer who fixes hairdryers...

[darmstadt]

"there's more to life than a technical manual".

One of the most irritating things I find with people in computing is this, doesn't anyone RTFM anymore? I remember one job I had I wrote a very comprehensive manual about the system, in fact our documentation had to be spot on as it was real time systems and commands had to be entered directly on the minute, but still used to get phone calls about how to do various tasks. I used to reply with 'read page 36 paragraph 3, you will find it there' type of comment. I even put a huge RTFM poster up on the wall.

[NotAllThere]

I meant the subject. Just trying the humour thing out again. You know, practicing for the season of good will and all that bollocks.

Well, it made me laugh. Gibbon impressively - and I mean that - laying out his manly, contractor in the wilds, where the rubber hits the road, he-man computing skills, but shows his more sensitive, "there's more to life than a technical manual", appreciative, erudite side.

Dismissed with a single word.

[Platypus]

You know, practicing for the season of good will and all that bollocks.

Yep, I enjoy that kind of stuff to.

Unusual for Spod's spelling to be so lax

Have a DHP, Spod.

[Gibbon]

Yep, I enjoy that kind of stuff to.

My next project is in that area.

Yeah, what and where? (discreetly)

[SupremeSpod]

Keep practicing and FYI I'm not, just practicing being arsey for the season of pretence coming up!

Actually the subject is taken up by a lot of girls, which makes the tutorials very pleasant. Otherwise a pretty uselesss subject I agree, apart from the fact I find it fascinating reading stuff written so long ago. I don't find computers interesting at all but some of the applications are, such as the jet engine stuff I'm doing and the EFA cockpit displays.

Yep, I enjoy that kind of stuff to.

My next project is in that area.

[Gibbon]

I meant the subject. Just trying the humour thing out again. You know, practicing for the season of good will and all that bollocks.

Keep practicing and FYI I'm not, just practicing being arsey for the season of pretence coming up!

Actually the subject is taken up by a lot of girls, which makes the tutorials very pleasant. Otherwise a pretty uselesss subject I agree, apart from the fact I find it fascinating reading stuff written so long ago. I don't find computers interesting at all but some of the applications are, such as the jet engine stuff I'm doing and the EFA cockpit displays.

[SupremeSpod]

And if I was?

I meant the subject. Just trying the humour thing out again. You know, practicing for the season of good will and all that bollocks.

[kandr]

And if I was?

Don't worry about SS he is a bit mentally challenged.

[Gibbon]

Gay.

And if I was?

[SupremeSpod]

"A CompSci grad is supposed to be able to do difficult things that arts grads simply can’t understand. "

Absolute bollocks in my humble opinion.

Having done all the difficult stuff on hard real-time mission and safety critical systems I'm often surprised when people can't see how fecking easy it really is. Then again I haven't got a degree in it.

Even assembler is for puffs when compared with writing machine cod patches for an Elliot 920C which involves scouring memory maps for scraps of bytes.

Difficult is diagnosing faults on a Phantom Fire Control Radar.

Even more fecking difficult is trying to write about why virtue was an important theme in Homers Illiad. (My current OU assignment).

Gay.

[Gibbon]

"A CompSci grad is supposed to be able to do difficult things that arts grads simply can’t understand. "


Absolute bollocks in my humble opinion.

Having done all the difficult stuff on hard real-time mission and safety critical systems I'm often surprised when people can't see how fecking easy it really is. Then again I haven't got a degree in it.

Even assembler is for puffs when compared with writing machine cod patches for an Elliot 920C which involves scouring memory maps for scraps of bytes.

Difficult is diagnosing faults on a Phantom Fire Control Radar.

Even more fecking difficult is trying to write about why virtue was an important theme in Homers Illiad. (My current OU assignment).

[SupremeSpod]

Not sure how we were meant to extrapolate that from your post.

Oh well.

[kandr]

The GAL mentioned gigabytes of hand-crafted assembler.

I countered that it was still there running on the original processors.

Putting the effort into writing an operating system or any other large scale system in an assembly language restricted to a specific processor is not a viable proposition these days. Hence "C" can be regarded as a ardware independent assembler language as possibly Java will become.

Not sure how we were meant to extrapolate that from your post.