druddle

Just seen this quote on a posting on another BBS...

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Class

chiark

Someone's .sig on /. by any chance? Always a good 'un that

IWatkins

I gave up trying to make my software idiot proof years ago, we have really clever idiots

MarkO

Superb. Kindof related...

I used to bowl (ten-pin) in a late-night league at Charrington bowl in Tolworth. There was a girl in a team we were playing, and she was a bit of a bimbo. During the game the conversation got around to careers, and she stated that she was thinking of "going into IT". After a little discussion, it became apparent that she had no real knowledge of computers, so I asked her why she wanted to do it.

"For the money", she said, "I've got a lot of friends who work in IT; they all seem to be earning loads".

I quizzed her further, as to which particular area of IT she was aiming for (I assumed maybe IT recruitment, or even sales) but she said "the best money's in programming, so I'm going to do that". I tried to explain to her that development is fairly complex, and requires a bit of training and practice before you can do it commercially, to which she responded:

"Don't be silly! I've seen programmers at work. All you have to do is press the buttons in the right order"!!!

I was laughing so much I put the next 2 ball in the gully.

super_si

lol thats quite good!

Why im taking A level maths, theres alot to digest in programming

stevencotton

Shame there's no Mathematics forum for you then.

Steve.

GaryK

Si,

there's only alot to digest if you try and cover a dozen different programming langauges!

yes that really tee's me off about people outside of IT, because there is no 'official' apprenticeship people expect to walk straight in and earn **** loads of cash straight away - aint gonna happen!

Gary

MarkO

Sad thing is, that around the time of the Y2K panic, that's exactly what was happening!

GaryK

Marko,

yep true enough, I remember testers getting more than developers during the lead up to Y2K but hey it was short lived.

Gary

RichB

>there's only alot to digest if you try and cover a dozen different programming langauges!


It makes me laugh my **** off when you see CVs of people with C, C++, Cobol, Javascript, Java, ASP, PHP, HTML, blah blah blah languages.
You look a their age and wonder just how much they know about these languages they claim to be experts in.

Me, I know C (10 years) and a bit of C++ but currently don't use any of it as I am in a crap job doing bloody tech support for sod all money in an internet company LOL - I'm not bitter

MarkO

C and C++ are basically the same, other than a bit of syntax. You can't program the latter without knowing the former, and if you can do the former you can do OO without needing the latter.

Javascript is basically like C++ but a bit more abstract and a slightly different syntax.

Java's the same, but a wider feature-set and the odd pointer chucked in.

HTML's a piece of p*ss, and PHP isn't much different from C++ either.

Oh, and a blind, dumb retard with no hands could code VB.

You haven't mentioned the other languages that I'd expect a decent programmer to have experience in (Perl, Lisp, Prolog, Eiffel, etc). I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a graduate to have had experience of all those languages. I certainly did, by the time I'd been working a couple of years.

Jeff Wiltshire

Programmers are just put on this earth to p*ss off support people...

ROFL at super_si and the maths forum......



Jeff

MarkO

Support people are put on this earth to p*ss off users.

Users are put on this earth to p*ss off programmers.

It's a vicious circle.

IWatkins

I've got experience in about 25 languages but that doesn't mean I can write code off the top of my head in 25 languages

Delphi (object pascal) is my current weapon of choice and I class (pun not intended) myself as being skilled but by no means expert after 5 years of almost daily usage.

I also laugh when you get the CV with 25 languages on it. Ask them anything about 90% of the langauges listed and they won't be able to answer.

I also don't know where the idea that you need A Level Maths to be a programmer comes from ? I dropped A Level Maths after about 2 weeks and spent the extra free periods at school going rock climbing or drinking coffee. Hasn't done my programming career any harm. 2 plus 3 does equal 6 right ?

Cheers

Ian

MrDeference

Funny thread.
Pick the tool for the job. If you are doing some GUI windows work, you are a fool if you don't use VB. Likewise, I don't expect there are many DSP programmers using VB.

You only need as much maths as is required by the problem you are trying to solve. If you are writing a web page, then you need to be an artist not a mathematician. If you are writing a CELP algorithm then you need strong maths. To say that programming intrinsically requires maths is wrong. You have to be logical and methodical, nothing more.

GaryK

Yep agreed, hardcore maths never surfaces much in *Real* world situations, most business apps (sometimes) require simple financial calculations not much more. Si drop the maths, its SQL you need, time and time again regardless of the language you are gonna be hooking up to a DB.

>>you are a fool if you don't use VB
IMHO you are a fool to *use* it, poorly typed, interpreted, no exception handling, no resource protection, antiquated error handling , hybrid object modelling, poor Win32 API support the list goes on and on - its just not robust enough!
(steps back to avoid the barrage of insults from VB devs...)

Gary

MrDeference

Haha. Knew someone would say that. "Pick the tools" was the sentiment. I have only ever used VB to create test framework code for C++/ATL COM components, which it did rather well. If it isn't low level enough for your needs, don't use it. But I think you knew that's what I meant

MarkO

VB = Tomy 'My First Programming Language'.

druddle

VB = Verbose b0llox

GaryK

yes MrD C++ huh? you have my upmost respect

Now can we have a *strong* VB advocate to start a war....

MrDeference

If only you had met me, you would understand how little respect I deserve
The funny thing is that we are being deskilled at every step. I guess being snide is our perogative; we have the underlying skills and knowledge and can revel in being part of the "old school".
In fact I started in Electronics, so my understanding starts at the chip die. As my career has progressed I have got further and further from the hardware and am now using C#: It's the best tool for what I need to do.

super_si

to be honest, i found C to C++ big jump.

Without much OOP it was quite hard gasping that aspect

Si

IWatkins

Can I throw Delphi in again ? In the GUI Windows work area, it really does have to be Delphi. VB does suck large fat ones IMHO

A lot of my work is Delphi front ends to mainly Fortran backends in the form of DLLs. But as we head towards Web Services rather than binaries on the desktop, guess what, we are still using Delphi for SOAP/XML based systems with Fortran back ends

C++ is too hard to read, you actually have to put comments in to make any sense of it

Java is dead. No arguments.

C# looks promising, but not very exciting is it ?

HTML isn't a programming langauge.

But as has been said, tools for the job. Most of my work is scientific work, lots of crunching of numbers, almost zero DB work, lots of graphics/graphic production. Delphi + Fortran works for us.

My point ? None really, well apart from the fact that VB does really suck.....

Cheers

Ian

MrDeference

Haha. I really don't think programming could ever be called exciting. That is why so many of us drive fast cars. We need the entertainment
Si - I think that universities do themselves a disservice when they approach OO from a historical perspective. They should just get straight in there with examples - it really is a straight forward concept.

IWatkins

MrD,
Exciting, no, I guess you are right

As for teaching OOP, I also had the theory, for about two weeks, without any examples before being let loose on actual code. By that time, you don't care or even take in any of the details "Polymorphic What ??!!??".

Much better way to explain it is with code and do it building up to the more advanced concepts.

Cheers

Ian

GaryK

Agreed Ian, Delphi is my weapon of choice, interestingly most VB programmers think their IDE is good which it is but the code editor sucks compared to Delphi.

Interesting point about the Java vs VB, it is horses for courses and yes tool choice is normally based on productivity (strength of IDE) I haev friend who does Java development in the City and up until a few months ago they were using Notepad to write the code!!!

Gary

super_si

Taught my self bits of c++, Uni's are java Orientated.

We did 14hours a week theroy of java, and 2hours practical.

Load crap, other way round would have being loads better i think.
Si

MrDeference

Hence my suggestion that you go for an HND.

MarkO

It's not really a massive leap. Just structures with function pointers in them.

super_si

Im doing the HND, straight to 2nd year .

marko, was little things like remember cout and <<, from printf.

that java Sytem.Out.Println(...

Si