Re: Eiffel anyone? - Who uses it?

[Henrik Wist <wist@ex.muffin.org>]

Walt Howard (walth@netcom.com) wrote:

: 	You can't beat working with a team of bright people where
: every day you learn. Where new and exciting approaches to
: problems come up every day, things that you would never have
: thought of, even though you yourself have some great ideas.

: 	Just do what it takes to get that first programming job. 

: 	My mother teaches art history at Cal Tech. Cal Tech wants to
: make sure all the nerds get a little experience with the
: humanities. I guess they want them thinking twice when they go to
: work on H-Bomb projects. She says her classes are almost entirely
: oriental/asian. The Americans aren't going in for the "practical
: skills" anymore. Someone is telling them that "History" or
: "Poetry" is what they should learn. I think it's pathetic.

imho very wise words spoken :-)

: mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney) wrote:
: >Or just pick up a programming book at the
: >corner bookstore?  Hey, Learn C in 14 Days!

: 	At a rough guess, 95% of the American programmers I know
: (microcomputer environment) did just that. They did NOT major or
: minor in any field related to computers in college. They were
: self taught. Virtually ALL of the foreign (Russian, Chinese and
: Indian) programmers were formally educated in computers (probably
: immigration only lets in people with formal educations). However
: I've seen no real qualitative difference between them. Both
: classes (foreign and domestic) programmers were roughly equal in
: skill. That's because, a month on a REAL programming job is worth
: a year in school so that is where the REAL learning takes place. 

: >If it were that simple, everybody would be doing it.

: 	It's the other way around. Self teaching requires
: self-motivation which is a lot harder than mindlessly wandering
: though school because your parents wanted you to. If a person
: wants to learn, they can do so by themselves. They may not have
: the paper to prove it, but that doesn't mean they don't know it.
: In the end, it boils down to their own desire to learn anyway, no
: matter which way they do that learning. 

Although I agree with you, I have to admit that it is sometimes better to
have one who corrects mistakes you make (count 'bad style' as a mistake). 
Self teaching lacks the possibility of being under supervision (ok, if you
have a bad teacher the problem still exists :-).

: 	People think that "taking a class" is some magical way to
: learn, like the knowledge is going to pour out of the teacher
: into them.  
Indeed, usually 50-75% of the people in a class just sit there and read
newspaper (*sigh*) or sleep.
: It's completely false. Anyone can read books on a
: particular subject and learn as much as having someone tell them
: what's in the book!
Ahhh but teachers _should_ (and the most I know do) not just tell you what's
written in a book but give you more information on a subject. And of course
teacher can answer questions on the subjects. Books can't cover all
questions that might arise

[...]
: 	You should see the source code on some of the most successful
: applications. It would make OOP programmers vomit it's so hack,
: yet, it didn't require "clean" design or anything to be
: successful. ( I get sick to my stomach sometimes because I spend
: so much effort making my designs and code simple, understandable
: and object oriented but other people who don't, still do ok).

I can feel with you (I tend to get frustrated seeing the other guys just
hacking away and me still writing designs). Until now (ok, since i'm still a
student, not that much projects) there was a point in every project where
others couldn't find bugs (quick) in their code because it was 'one great hack'.
The time spent in design and simple code is payed back later and that's what
keeps me spending that time.

[...]
: 	Oh yeah, the programmer who didn't know what main() was?
: He was a Windows GUI programmer, who didn't need main, ever.
I don't comment on that one :-) Regards,
Henrik
-- 
goose@MuFFiN.Org    // IRC: |GOOSE| //   wist@informatik.tu-muenchen.de

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 It is just the drunker I sit here the longer I get."