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Teaching foreign policy majors to code

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Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#21

Post by duckerude »

deanmen wrote: post #16
superkuh wrote: post #2

I understand why the teacher in this case hid the coding requirements of the course. His reasoning makes sense. But I'm not sure it was ethical misrepresenting the course even for the students own benefit.

In older use, "coding" meant only assembly and machine language programming, which would be a separate process from writing a high-level algorithmic version. A paper on FORTRANS claims that it will "virtually eliminate coding and debugging" Thus the statement that the class is no coding could be considered truthful. http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/BackusE...

That doesn't seem relevant, given what the article says:

>On the first day I soothingly assured them that they wouldn’t have to do any programming, which of course was a complete lie.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#22

Post by blauditore »

> Lesson #2: the basic paradigm of code (strictly sequential execution, with flow control and function definitions) isn’t always intuitive and should be explained clearly to first-time programmers.

That's a good point. I like to tell programming newbies (or just other people who don't know what software development is) that a computer program is like a cooking recipe: It defines step by step what to do, and someone (the computer) executes it.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#23

Post by blauditore »

f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

I think the job posting issue is partially related to recruiters not knowing much about technology either, so they stick to "measurable" means like degrees and technologies, even though it's often stupid. Also, job postings are generally optimistic, and you might still have a good chance if you don't meet all requirements.

On the other hand, I also thinks it's not ideal for someone with only little software engineering education to aim for a job which is full-on coding. I think those kinds of workshops (or single programming courses) are more useful for jobs where coding is just tangentially a topic, like if you're occasionally creating/maintaining advanced spreadsheet files, or work together with programmers (if you're graphics designer, product manager, or similar).

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#24

Post by dsego »

f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

A lot of us are, I suspect, in the same boat.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#25

Post by deanmen »

andybak wrote: post #13
evil-olive wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it unethical for a professor to lie to their students? Yes. Is is still unethical if the professor argues that the lies were for the students' own good? Yes. Is it still unethical if, a few months into the course, the professor tells the truth? Yes. Is it still unethical if, a few months later, the professor tells the truth and one or more students says "you know, I understand now why you lied to us"? Yes. This re…

Possible overreaction alert...

Lying always being unethical is actually a relatively standard idea in classical ethical theories e.g. Summa Theologica, Question 110, Article 3. However, the statement that the class involves "no coding" could be considered truthful in the social context or as part of a use of mental reservation.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#26

Post by deanmen »

duckerude wrote: post #21
deanmen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In older use, "coding" meant only assembly and machine language programming, which would be a separate process from writing a high-level algorithmic version. A paper on FORTRANS claims that it will "virtually eliminate coding and debugging" Thus the statement that the class is no coding could be considered truthful. http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/BackusE...

That doesn't seem relevant, given what the article says: >On the first day I soothingly assured them that they wouldn’t have to do any programming, which of course was a complete lie.

Sorry, I must have misremembered and thought they said "no coding" instead of "no programming". But people would probably call such a usage a lie if it is intended to mislead even if strictly speaking it isn't.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#27

Post by laserBro13Fcali »

f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

  what I experienced is writing 
  code that generates a sql query 
  to the parameters that's taken 
  from the frontend which had 
  NOTHING to do with interview 
  questions
Oh, this, this, this. So very much this.

The fucking snobbery, and nerd signaling that goes on during a coding interview gets so thick, that sometimes I'll just laugh in someone's face and throw the interview.

  Hey, hey, buddy, are you cool enough
  to merge this array, AND sort it? Okay
  Now implement a linked list and then
  detect a circular reference. Okay, now
  reconstruct it as a directed acyclic graph.

  Okay, but can you do it...

  ...all in one line????

  Solve the travelling salesman problem
  in 10 seconds or less. Whatsa matter?
  Never HEARD of it? You call yourself a
  programmer?

  Okay, well your ad-hoc pseudocode in this
  code pen isn't even O(log N) so we can't
  hire you. I know this because the code pen
  raised a compiler warning about your include.
  ...and also suggested this coding challenge to
  me via auto complete. But yeah, we'll keep
  your resume on file. Thanks!
GTFO of my face. Why even tie my shoes for these interviews. I swear I'm not even bathing or wearing clean clothes to the next one.

Oh, but the best is, they want to hire you, but they can't tell you anything about the job until you sign an NDA. Big secrets. Watch out!

Then, you look at their stack, and it's all canned open source bullshit, used off the shelf. Like, hello? What are you smoking. Every other shop is using this shit. It's fucking LAMP. It's GPL'd. Okay, fucking sue me with mutant nuclear apocalypse lawyers. You will get: ZERO DOLLARS BECAUSE YOU WILL HAVE FIRED ME FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, AND THIS WAS MY ONLY SOURCE OF FUCKING INCOME. WHAT DOES THIS NDA EVEN ACCOMPLISH? SHALL I SIGN IT IN BLOOD?

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#28

Post by jhanschoo »

mathattack wrote: post #7
crooked-v wrote: post #3

Starting off with C? Ow. R or Python seem like they'd be much better choices for something students would actually use in the future, given their data analysis tools.

Pointers seem unnecessary for non-CS majors. Go with R or Python.

For those languages I'd translate such questions to ones about reference types and scoping; these are indeed must-know and a common source of bugs.

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#29

Post by felixarba »

laserBro13Fcali wrote: post #27
f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

what I experienced is writing code that generates a sql query to the parameters that's taken from the frontend which had NOTHING to do with interview questions Oh, this, this, this. So very much this . The fucking snobbery, and nerd signaling that goes on during a coding interview gets so thick, that sometimes I'll just laugh in someone's face and throw the interview. Hey, hey, buddy, are you cool enough to merge thi…

Whoah

Re: Teaching foreign policy majors to code

#30

Post by saltpeppa »

laserBro13Fcali wrote: post #27
f4stjack wrote: post #19

I must say I am conflicted to write on this subject. On the one hand I am a person who has a humanities background turned to coding (bachelor's on philosophy; master's on sociology) but on the other hand I am burned out now and unwilling to do anything code related thanks to previous employers so my outlook isn't a nice one. The problem I experienced was most of the companies want a bachelor of science or an engineer…

what I experienced is writing code that generates a sql query to the parameters that's taken from the frontend which had NOTHING to do with interview questions Oh, this, this, this. So very much this . The fucking snobbery, and nerd signaling that goes on during a coding interview gets so thick, that sometimes I'll just laugh in someone's face and throw the interview. Hey, hey, buddy, are you cool enough to merge thi…

Shoulda paid more attention in school.
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