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10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

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41–50 of 164 posts

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#41

Silly me. I hesitated clicking on the link because I was affraid of reading a super long list.

Yeah, especially after I saw he'd increased from 1010 to 10000 items. That's a difference of 10101... right? I should've paid more attention to the binary subtraction section in class.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not, and that's the point. I've seen computer science students struggle at basic system administration tasks - even things like moving files and directories. I maintain that half the trouble we have deployment is that developers don't know anything about how configuration and setup works in the real world. This list helps to bridge some of that divide by having programmers deploy software, not just build it. EDIT…

While I'm surprised someone got through four years of CS without learning to use mv, if you are looking for 'developers' then you should look for software engineering majors, and if you are looking for sysadmins then you should look at people with two year associates degrees in information systems or something. CS is a branch of mathematics; expecting fresh CS grads to make good sysadmins is like expecting comparativ…

Google expects its software engineers to do all that and more with a computer science degree. So what if it's not taught in the major? You're smart -- figure it out.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#43
post #36

up to 0100 and haven't been accepted to a CS program... (havent applied yet either)

Actually that's not a bad comment about how an actual College CS program may not have anything to do with the real world. I run my own servers, I code my sites from scratch in HTML, JavaScript, PHP, SQL etc.. build all my computers.. made several open source contribution coding in C.. I can do everything in that list and much more.. Yet when I applied to a local University in a CS program a couple years ago I was den…

Go talk to someone at the uni who who cares about enthusiasm. Simply filling out a boilerplate form deliver great results unless you are boilerplate too. Engage some social hacking.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#44

I think a lot of people here missed the point. This isn't a list of "stuff that will make you SUPER BALLER," it's a list of easy things that teach you very much and give you a lot of confidence for a very small amount of effort. Plus, all of these tasks are highly relevant in our web database-driven world. Not everyone wants to be Johnny Writes His Own C Compiler Geek, but every CS student SHOULD be able to configure…

Somebody should write a "stuff that will make you SUPER BALLER" list.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#46
post #17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. There's a general disconnect in a good amount of CS programs between the curriculum and reality. This post is trying to bridge the two. I'd also like to add: 10000 Learn to use source control, use it to store your new LAMP code on Github. 10001 Start studying design: web, graphic, type.

I am wary of that sort of very specific advice. Why LAMP, just because it's fashionable? There are many, many other sorts of web stack alone, let alone the many, many other sorts of application. Same with GitHub (which I use myself, btw), there are plenty of others. It just sounds like ESR's advice, to be a great hacker you should be just like me...

Questioning specific advice is part of the learning, I believe.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#47
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not, and that's the point. I've seen computer science students struggle at basic system administration tasks - even things like moving files and directories. I maintain that half the trouble we have deployment is that developers don't know anything about how configuration and setup works in the real world. This list helps to bridge some of that divide by having programmers deploy software, not just build it. EDIT…

While I'm surprised someone got through four years of CS without learning to use mv, if you are looking for 'developers' then you should look for software engineering majors, and if you are looking for sysadmins then you should look at people with two year associates degrees in information systems or something. CS is a branch of mathematics; expecting fresh CS grads to make good sysadmins is like expecting comparativ…

Knowing how modern operating systems work is crucial to the study of many CS topics. At the end of the day, a CS major must understand the workings of all systems (because they can often be generalized). Hands-on experience is one of the best ways to achieve that clarity.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#48
Why is the rule restricted to LAMP? And why should the P = PHP & Python? What makes these special? Both are poorly designed languages (since I assume we're not talking Python 3k here)?

If anything, I'd say, "Do the systems engineer job application challenge at Square in 2 languages of your choice, one of which should be Valley mainstream. Keep Python or Ruby in slot one, and aim for a big-iron language for #2, like maybe Scala or C++ or OCaml or Haskell.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#49

It's an interesting list, but I do believe it lacks a lot of computer-specific things which I personally think people should do. For example - Build your own computer - Build your own (small) operative system - Build your own programming language would be on my list of things a CS-student should do before graduating, because you will most likely get into problems where knowledge of the three things mentioned above wi…

Building your own computer or your own operating system very rarely help, in my opinion, because the real systems you work on are so much more complex than the pretend stuff you build that you miss massive layers of complexity. It's far better to have a good knowledge of how modern systems work than waste years attempting to build such a system.

Similarly, I have no idea why you would build your own programming language. You're very rarely likely to run into a problem with closure conversion in a programming language you wrote, but you might run into a problem with peephole optimization that you would never get to implementing unless you have a PhD in PL.

Re: 10000 things all CS students should do before graduating

#50
post #36

up to 0100 and haven't been accepted to a CS program... (havent applied yet either)

Actually that's not a bad comment about how an actual College CS program may not have anything to do with the real world. I run my own servers, I code my sites from scratch in HTML, JavaScript, PHP, SQL etc.. build all my computers.. made several open source contribution coding in C.. I can do everything in that list and much more.. Yet when I applied to a local University in a CS program a couple years ago I was den…

Take some math courses at a community college or online and boost your math grades, then reapply.
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