From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: f8c65,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf8c65,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,af40e09e753872c X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,f292779560fb8442 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1008e3,30e368bdb3310fe5 X-Google-Attributes: gid1008e3,public From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe) Subject: Re: Hungarian notation Date: 1996/05/29 Message-ID: <4oh1i3$1v4@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 157311955 references: <4adem2$b5s@mercury.IntNet.net> <4n6off$6e2@mikasa.iol.it> <3198F30F.2A2@zurich.ibm.com> <4nsg3f$liu@solutions.solon.com> <31a3b322.442404233@sqarc> <4o35bu$ut8@sol.caps.maine.edu> <4oehcq$ogl@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> <4offnb$1gbu@uni.library.ucla.edu> organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.modula3,comp.lang.modula2,comp.edu,comp.lang.eiffel nntp-posting-user: ok Date: 1996-05-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: jmartin@cs.ucla.edu (Jay Martin) writes: >ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >>Frankly, I have come to the end of my tether. >>I am *sick* of programs that don't work. >>I am *sick* of operating systems that crash. >>I am *sick* of word processors that hang my machine. >>I am *sick* of hypercomplex interfaces with pathetic documentation. >>I am *sick* of file transfer programs that scramble student files. >>I am *sick* of oh well you get the idea. >>I am nearly as fed up with Apple as I am with Micro$oft. >>I want to learn from the people who routinely produce programs that work. >If you think virtually anyone in academic Computer Science really >gives a rats ass about the above (software design and implementation), >boy are you in the wrong field! When it first came on the stage, RMIT was "The Melbourne Working Men's College". Nowadays it is a fully fledged university, but the basic ethos is still "we are here to educate people to be effective at their job". Tertiary education here is divided (to grossly over-simplify) into "the TAFE sector" (training) and "the HECS sector" (education). In this department, we try to provide *education*, not (or not just) *training*. (There is also an RMIT TAFE division which provides training.) But it is supposed to be education that will actually help people do a better job. We have a long way to go. Teaching is *extremely* hard. But we try. Our graduates have a pretty good chance of getting a job in the field they studied. The Federal government here is talking about 10-12% cuts to higher education next year. You can bet your bottom dollar that we care *passionately* about the reputation our graduates earn for us. And so we care passionately about trying to teach them how to work well in a real programming environment. In my "home" university, the University of Auckland in New Zealand, I know that the staff in the CS department there, like here, care about research, but also care deeply that their students actually have a reasonable level of competence. And for what it's worth, I know that my friends at the University of Melbourne also care about this. In an environment where doctrinaire economic irrationalists play Sweeney Todd, where more students go looking for jobs after their first degree than continue with further study, and where you have only to read comp.risks or Software Engineering Notes to see how much suffering is caused by bad programs, any CS academic has to care passionately about software design and implementation. If we don't, then we will soon have to look for new jobs, and who then will want us? In an environment where native speakers of English are not only not taught to spell, but can enter university not knowing the difference between "as such" and "such as", and writing sentences like "I would suggest consulting to a good book", our ability to teach students to write good comments is obviously limited. Anyone who actually has to *mark* student programs wants them to write well, with appropriate comments. If there is anyone at all in academic computer science who doesn't care about software design and implementation, perhaps there may be a few people with established reputations who don't come into contact with many undergraduate students and don't actually use computers much themselves. Mind you, there are people who *care* who don't know what good code *is*. I've just been looking at a C textbook where the authors go out of their way to tell their readers to use names like "quarter_t", which names are of course reserved in ANSI C. At least they thought about naming, even if they know little about ANSI C. -- Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++ ??? Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.