Most of our CS students suck at CS • Hacker News Board

Re: Most of our CS students suck at CS

#31

Post by watmough » Wed, Jan 23, 2008, 6:09 AM UTC

choward93 wrote: post #20

I know this is amateur question, but I am taking my intro to programming class this quarter, and we are learning with Python(and pseudo-code, if that counts) am I doomed to being a crappy programmer? I was notorious for being a Lego addict when i was a kid, and i am taking the classes because i need a formal education on programming, so i would like to think I am not part of this group, but am I getting off on the wr…

If you're not a 'hacker' now, then the odds are against you becoming one.

On the other hand, you don't really need to be a hacker to make a good living. I know quite a few really excellent programmers / software engineers / designers who can perform all those roles, and who are emphatically not hackers.

For most programming tasks, like billing software, or web-sites, there is a fairly straight-forward way to design something, and a reasonably straight-forward way to implement it. Reliable, predictable timelines and implementations are the high-end of business software consulting.

You can be pretty good at software engineering, and be fairly well-paid, even working regular hours and not letting it consume your life.

Re: Most of our CS students suck at CS

#32

Post by hello_moto » Wed, Jan 23, 2008, 6:26 AM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #10

amichail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find most frustrating is that people don't talk about the importance of application-level creativity. It's all about implementation. The secret is that implementation is not interesting nor rewarding -- whether it's done in Java or C or whatever. It only becomes interesting when you are innovating at the application level. And so, CS as a whole is a depressing field. Most jobs are unrewarding since you are tol…

"implementation is not interesting nor rewarding" I disagree, and I don't think I could write code for a living otherwise, 9-5 or startup.

your own startup or working for "a startup own by someone else"?

I've been through the 2nd one and it's just the same as working 9-5 believe it or not.

Re: Most of our CS students suck at CS

#33

Post by derefr » Wed, Jan 23, 2008, 8:39 AM UTC

What would happen if one school actually decided that they would go the other way, and fail anyone who "sucked"? Wouldn't that school then get a good reputation for graduating only "great programmers," pushing any aspiring programmer to apply there--a virtuous cycle? The top schools in any field graduate the best simply because the best apply there, and the best apply there simply because "the best" are known to graduate from there.

Re: Most of our CS students suck at CS

#34

Post by andreyf » Wed, Jan 23, 2008, 8:44 AM UTC

amichail wrote: post #23

Xichekolas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... an algorithm is a series of steps to solve a problem. If he is good at problem solving, he should have no problem with algorithms. Now, I think a lot of people are bad at remembering every algorithm they are taught in a class. Unless you use it a few times, it's not likely you will be able to implement it off the top of your head, but that is what the internet and all those useful CS books are for.

I mean it's difficult to discover non-trivial algorithms on your own.

But seeing examples of non-trivial algorithms makes what you once considered non-trivial, trivial. A lot of algorithm design seems to be a kind of poetry to me - where one draws on similarities to algorithms she's seen before, as a poet would draw on metaphors or imagery they've experienced elsewhere.