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Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

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Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#41

Post by imgabe »

bilcorry wrote: post #14

Computer Science can be taught without a student ever having used a computer; it's a branch of mathematics. Would you expect a mathematician to know what a .tar file is? Reminds me of a quote from one of the most famous Computer Scientists, who was really a mathematician: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - E. W. Dijkstra (1930 - 2002)

You're right, you can learn compsci theory without encountering a .tar file just like you can learn all about astronomy without encountering a telescope. But would you expect someone with a university degree in astronomy to have never heard of a telescope before?

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#42

Post by pius »

In my program, we had classes (6.033 http://web.mit.edu/6.033/www/, I'm looking at you) with tasks that practically required you to use *NIX systems, know how to open LaTeX'd Postscript files, install open source libraries from tar files, etc. before you graduated. It's not that those things were explicitly the point of the assignments; it's that those things were simply part of the requisite yak shaving for successfully completing the real tasks.

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#43

Post by amichail »

axod wrote: post #36
amichail wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's important is whether this person has any important skills that you care about. Also, it's quite possible to get by under Windows without knowing anything about tar files.

"Getting by under windows" doesn't really scream 'great coder' to me.

Windows has excellent development tools.

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#44

Post by jrnewton »

Tichy wrote: post #38

To be honest, I still don't completely see the point of tar - isn't it redundant, since zip puts things into an archive anyway? Coming from windows, I never used tar, I just zipped everything. Any now that I am on Linux, I never had the need to tar anything. Untaring thankfully is provided by the Gnome File Explorer. Using Notepad for programming, however, is really odd...

unless you just want to _quickly_ package some files, use tar, skip the compression.

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#46

Post by tim2 »

Tichy wrote: post #38

To be honest, I still don't completely see the point of tar - isn't it redundant, since zip puts things into an archive anyway? Coming from windows, I never used tar, I just zipped everything. Any now that I am on Linux, I never had the need to tar anything. Untaring thankfully is provided by the Gnome File Explorer. Using Notepad for programming, however, is really odd...

If you have a folder full of media files (jpg|mp3|avi) then zip is going to waste a lot of time and CPU cycles over just tar-ing it all up.

Other than that, I've just used tar directly in some edge-cases to fit within some constraints.

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#49

Post by fugue88 »

Xichekolas wrote: post #27
aristus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: I'm in a similar situation: I've 11 years' experience and want to take some CS classes now that I live near Berkeley. Any tips?

I can't speak for Berkeley, but my favorite classes in CS were always the ones on Algorithms and novel languages. Avoid classes that teach syntax, unless the syntax is used to highlight a language feature you have never encountered before, like continuations or currying.

English is my favorite novel language, but I didn't have much time for reading fiction in school. ;)

Re: Should a senior in Comp Sci know what a .tar file is?

#50

Post by fugue88 »

Tichy wrote: post #38

To be honest, I still don't completely see the point of tar - isn't it redundant, since zip puts things into an archive anyway? Coming from windows, I never used tar, I just zipped everything. Any now that I am on Linux, I never had the need to tar anything. Untaring thankfully is provided by the Gnome File Explorer. Using Notepad for programming, however, is really odd...

tar's specialty was writing archives directly to tape (Tape ARchive) and minimizing tape-seeks as much as possible. Yeah, it's a pretty old program.
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