Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#31

Post by wmf » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 10:39 PM UTC

javanix wrote: post #18

frustrated wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the hacker qualities of CS undergrads fall on a pretty broad spectrum. Even if the majority of students have trouble with basic Unix tasks, I'm sure there will be 5% of them who will make excellent admins. And that's more than you need.

So how do you propose we set things up? Most of the need for CS labs is conformity in grading/teaching. I see the appeal - both fiscal and hacker-practical - for dropping the Uni labs, but I think that forcing 95% of CS majors to rely on 5% of their peers for support would cause enough grading and deadline ("I couldn't get the package to compile in time!") arguments that both faculty and undergrads would come to hate…

In college I often sshed from my computer into a lab computer, so I didn't really need the physical lab. Of course, maintaining servers may cost almost as much as maintaining a lab. Maybe preconfigured VM images are the answer.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#32

Post by Confusion » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 10:39 PM UTC

I find myself doubting the veracity of this article, because I just cannot imagine this kind if lunacy. I majored in physics at the Delft University of Technology and although it wasn't perfect, I might as well call it perfect compared to what you are describing. The helpfulness of the IT department in attaining goals made up for every shortcoming.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#33

Post by wmf » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 10:49 PM UTC

I see nothing has changed since I was there ten years ago. At that time the CS admins were students, but the job seemed to attract the BOFHest of the BOFHs.

If you had an office you probably should have just put your machine on csres and run it yourself.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#34

Post by slater » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 10:59 PM UTC

Sounds like a case of the bad ol' "I'm the boss here!"-style 'administrating', eg. some grizzled unix wizard knows only HIS way of doing things, that's automatically the way things SHOULD be done, these young whippersnappers'n their fancy GUI-driven installers, get off my lawn etc.

All they have to show for themselves is a flawlessly running system, which, to Those That Make The Decisions, is all that counts.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#35

Post by ableal » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:06 PM UTC

OK, now for the contrarian opinion: you're barking up the wrong tree.

A good university does not coddle up students like kindergartners, feeding them pap. It's more like boot camp - in the mud, on foot, carrying a heavy pack. Apparently, it's pointless, sadistic, exercise: the 'product' of the work has no value. Except for the connections your synapses make ...

Frankly, it's hard to feel sorry for students who will not 'read the FAQ', or do anything to improve their conditions by themselves, if they feel it's important. It either is not important, or the culture of helplessness has reached too far.

Also: C.S. is not about this week's 'state-of-the-art' tools - as the late Dijkstra (who taught at U.T.Austin) put it, it's like astronomy and telescopes.

P.S.: in any organization with more than a few dozen people, support staff will ask for emails or web-tickets. That's for two reasons: accountability and knowledge sharing.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#36

Post by drinian » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:26 PM UTC

I'm sorry, I thought that the CS computer lab was for doing CS work.

Yes, there's some stuff you probably should have had available -- automount and a better print manager come to mind. But, really, what are you doing in CS classes that can't be done well using fvwm?

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#37

Post by catz » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:32 PM UTC

IsaacSchlueter wrote: post #28

catz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I went to Southern CT State University, which is basically a glorified community college. ("I went to college in New Haven." eyebrows "Oh, Yale, huh?" "No, the New Haven college you HAVENT heard of.") You do not really appreciate the quality of universities in the USA. Even the university that you view as "second tier" is excellent by world standards. Also - smaller universities that focus on undergraduate educatio…

Yes, it often seems that SCSU's only failing as a university was that the landscaping and architecture weren't as nice. The bureaucratic hassles were often pretty annoying, and from what I've heard, they aren't so bad at private schools. But yeah, there are lots of very good, very cheap schools in this country. I have almost no student loan debt to speak of, and I got a great education. Not to mention that you can wa…

> The main advantage of a prestigious school seems to be that you get to rub elbows with rich people's kids.

Another advantage is that you can casually mention it repeatedly on HN (casual university name dropping).

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#38

Post by JimmyL » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:37 PM UTC

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #14

Why would anyone use the computer lab? How many undergrads actually do any computing for which $500 desktop computers in their dorm rooms would not be more than sufficient? Do the labs require special, non-OS software? In this day in age, that would be really weird. Even if classes are taught using Microsoft stuff, the basic tools are all free anymore. I recall reading that universities are doing away with dorm phone…

The basic tools may be free, but the more advanced things aren't. Many assignments require the use of packages like Matlab, Maple, and Pro/E - the idea being that we'll use these things in industry so we may as well get used to them in university. There are also a series of packages that are used that are free, but hard to find/maintain individually.

It also comes down to standardization - if I'm marking circuit layouts, I want everyone to use the same version of Electric that I did, so it's easy for me to deal with fifty submissions. I want everyone to compile their code using the same environment, so that I can simply recreate that environment and know that the code should compile.

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#39

Post by ableal » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:50 PM UTC

frustrated wrote: post #12

shard wrote: post #3

I grew up at a time when unix computers were UNIX computers, SUNs and HPUXs. The HPUXs were student run. They all had interfaces similar to fvwm2, and I don't recall having many problems learning how to use it. In fact, the reason that I can navigate so well in linux is because of the things I learned from doing stuff on the unix machines back in college.

There's nothing inherently wrong with fvwm2. I'm sure it was cutting edge back in your day. But it's ridiculously outdated in 2009. You might have learnt to use it, but today's students need to unlearn everything they've learnt. Even if they manage that, it's plain inefficient. By a big margin. Whatever technology you grew up with, you're bound to think of that as the natural interface. That's exactly the point I was…

> fvwm2, it's turning away the students in droves. This needs to be stopped.

Why ? Is the school losing any good computer scientists ?

Re: Tell HN: My horror story as a student dealing with my University computer lab

#40

Post by jibiki » Sat, Mar 28, 2009, 11:58 PM UTC

ableal wrote: post #39

frustrated wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing inherently wrong with fvwm2. I'm sure it was cutting edge back in your day. But it's ridiculously outdated in 2009. You might have learnt to use it, but today's students need to unlearn everything they've learnt. Even if they manage that, it's plain inefficient. By a big margin. Whatever technology you grew up with, you're bound to think of that as the natural interface. That's exactly the point I was…

> fvwm2, it's turning away the students in droves. This needs to be stopped. Why ? Is the school losing any good computer scientists ?

I had to use the computer lab for many of my comp sci courses. If the lab had had an unusable window manager, then I wouldn't have taken nearly as many comp sci classes. Undergrad CS course aren't just for CS majors.