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Last year we had to do vB, and ask furball, the teacher was sooooo slowwww at showing us concepts. I did not know VB and I was learning faster at my own pace, but we would loose points if we used any concepts we did not learn, such as while loops, which we only learned on the SECOND semister... yeah, very sad.

Ex problem in the book: Create a program that lists all the items that are contained in a file

Most real programmers would do a loop and use !=eof() as the condition, that's the most efficient way of doing it as it does not matter how much lines there are to read.

Well guess what, we'd loose points, because we did not learn that yet.

To this day, I don't consider myself knowing VB, I just don't know enough of it, we hardly learned anything during those TWO semisters. heck, we never did anything more complicated then a dialog box with a button that displays some random text. Most of our programs could easily be replicated in a console.


Now this year we're doing C++, different teacher. So I figured "oh boy I can brush up on my C++ knowledge" Oh, how WRONG I was. Same gimick, we can't use stuff we did not learn. If I were to decide, conditional statements (if AND cases), Loops (While, do while and for), arrays, functions and basic user input/output would be all thought in the same week. They are fundamental concepts, and anyone in a computer science class that does not understand that, well I'm sorry but they should not be there. LOL That's assuming of course that we did VB last year, so even someone who never programmed before that's now in 2nd year will at least know those concepts, so all there is to learn is the syntax difference.

Here's a good example, we had to write a program today that takes 3 numbers in any order, then show the one that's in the middle. So if the user enters 10 30 20 the result would be 20. We were only allowed to use if statements (we finally "learned" those yesterday). Now that's not so bad for only 3 numbers, but still rather messy code. Then part B says to do it with 5 numbers.

Now without using efficient programming, you won't get too far using only if statements.

So stuborn as I am, I used the following illegal C++ features:
- arrays
- array sort function (I did not know that, until I took 2 minutes to research it)
- while loops

So now my program asks the user for a number from 1 to 512 (array goes up to 512, I doubt anyone would go that high anyway) and then it shows the median based on those numbers. To make things even more efficient, if the user enters a even number, it automaticly decrements it by 1, since medians can't really be calculated when there is an even amount of numbers.

All this in about 30 lines of code. My friends who are hard core on not using advanced programming had it working with 3 numbers and the program was using up more lines then mine. Mine works for any number up to 512. And it was easier to code on top of it!

I should get some kind of credit for making a program that's better then what they ask in the book, but instead, I'd loose points for that. Heck I'd probably fail the whole test.

Funny part is, that same teacher also teaches our Internet programming class, and we don't have a book, and man, not having a book gives so much freedom, we are actually allowed to research stuff and code using basically any info we find online, so functions, loops, etc.

I now know a decent amount of javascript because that class is actually going at a decent pace. Our first assigment was to make a basic calculator. I doubt we'll even get that complex in C++ class next semister...


It just pisses me off how a class that could be interesting is made really dull because we have to go exactly by the book.

Wow, I just transfered 17Gigs of data to my test server while writing this random rant. Now I need to transfer it to the external drive that acts as a backup to that server.

So As I was saying... J/K I'm done.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31494

Teachers like bell curves. If you write a program at a much more advanced level than the rest of the class, then you're an anomaly. This will be seen as unacceptable, and the simplest explanation is that you're cheating.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31547

I did VB.NET last year and my lecturer is a twat. He told me that I would fail and that that I shouldn't be doing programming because I hadn't done it before. This was the first time he met me!

This year I have the same twat for computer networking- same attitude.

What you have to remember about lecturers and teachers is that they only became teachers because they failed at professionally doing what ever it is they are trying to teach and they don't like the idea that the students will graduate being more competant than them.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31548

I'm going to have to agree with wtd. If you're going ahead of the class and learning something and DOING a different concept than what was taught in class. Even though the solution is correct, the means are incorrect. However, I agree your classes are going MUCH slower than it should be, possibly because they have stretched the material into 2 years. You're probably just learning the intro part of your course, learning concepts that you already know, and know how to use efficiently. Now, that program you made, was it efficient? Lord no. The program YOU made, was it efficient, YES (There may be even a more efficient way than that). What's the teacher's point? Problem Solving. The teacher gives you these stupid easy questions with minimal code for 2 reasons:

1) So that you learn all types of functions that can be used as well as standard pieces of code.

2) So that you learn problem solving. Figuring out that there's more than one solution to a given problem.

I've noticed that when teachers give you a problem, later on when you learn new coding (Like arrays and loops and such) they will give you THAT exact same problem and tell you to code using those new concepts. I guess it's one of their teaching methods to show that there are different ways to code for the same problem.

When it comes to C++ programming, I know that you already have a good knowledge in C++, so you start off at a higher competance than the students who are just learning the language. Simply put, the course was created for the "novice programmer". The teachers take things in little baby steps and make sure everyone understands before they can proceed.

What I can suggest is, code the way you were taught by the teacher, don't use the knowledge you've aquired elsewhere because it'll probably only get you in trouble (Deducted marks). And if you're bored to tears with the slow teaching patterns, go the extra level and read your C++ book or talk on the forums to people who have been programming in C++ for years. That way, you will know enough concepts to use the code for other purposes (Not schoolwork, but actual programming projects like applications or games).

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31550

Yeah true, but you'd think the point of a class would be to learn something new though, and that they would encourage to do research to use new, better concepts. But instead you have to sail at a slow pace, against a hurricane wind, on land.

Mind you what's nice about this slow pace is that it's 1 class less to worry about. All I have to do is show up.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31553

I thought that it would be best if last year I just learned what the teacher taught but at the end of the module I didn't know how to do much at all and I still only got a scrape pass.

I started to study by myself and I learned loads of stuff.

If you want to do anything like programming as a job then experience is more important than qualifications. I've been looking at computer related jobs around here and they all ask for experience but not qualifications.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31554

Yeah experience is really the key, and I think that should go for anything, really, but not all jobs work that way unfortunatly. But it's seen allot in computer industry. I was a Level 3 network analyst this summer and I was offered to keep my job as a full time job instead of student, if I wanted to quit school, so that most likely means they were satisfied with my work and experience even if I don't have a college degree. Trust me, it was a hard decision.

Lot of people say I should go on to university after I'm done this college course (1 full year left and this year left) but really I doubt that's needed since I have plenty of experience in the field so with a college degree and a couple of certs I should get somewhere, most likely the same job I had, it does not get any better then that.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31555

Red Squirrel wrote: Yeah experience is really the key, and I think that should go for anything, really, but not all jobs work that way unfortunatly. But it's seen allot in computer industry. I was a Level 3 network analyst this summer and I was offered to keep my job as a full time job instead of student, if I wanted to quit school, so that most likely means they were satisfied with my work and experience even if I don't have a college degree. Trust me, it was a hard decision.

Lot of people say I should go on to university after I'm done this college course (1 full year left and this year left) but really I doubt that's needed since I have plenty of experience in the field so with a college degree and a couple of certs I should get somewhere, most likely the same job I had, it does not get any better then that.

Ya, you did well for a first job. You didn't have to cook burgers (Mind you, you could if you took the casing off the servers and slipped in a meat pattie and added some secret sauce like they use in Mc.......nevermind). As for my thoughts on the programming stuff, I think that slow paced classes are boring, but then again, you can always make crazy programs while the teacher rambles on about coding you already know. That was my whole grade 10 programming class actually, made a lot of games. It's not bad as long as you eventually get taught new concepts and new coding. Unlike last year where we learned up to arrays in VB and it ended there. That was a waste, why learn that language is you aren't going to be taught everything about it until it becomes useful?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31580

Haha actually those dell PE 1850's would be nice for making pizza. Put two and space them out by 1U and you got a nice pizza slot. A quad xeon server should get the job done.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31587

Red Squirrel wrote: Haha actually those dell PE 1850's would be nice for making pizza. Put two and space them out by 1U and you got a nice pizza slot. A quad xeon server should get the job done.

check for pieces of resistor before consuming

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31594

Alergy alert: May contain electronic components.

Nah, the top is nice flat stainless steal, so you should be ok. Hmm but if you take off the cover, you get more heat. Or you can just run citrix on the server and get everyone to play doom 3 off of it.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31595

Or you could put Citrix on the Server and get everyone to play Doom 3 off of it

See, the thing is Doom3 probably won't run on Citrix and by the time you got it up and running smoothly, Doom 4 would be out lol

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31598

haha yeah. That said, F@H should do the trick. Man imagine how fast that would run too on such a server.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:31601

I've found totally the opposite.

We did Java in the first year and at a reasonable pace so that everyone kept up but by the end of it we were all able to program say a hangman game.

But this year, we are doing C++, Haskell (and more Java) and they are going incredibly fast. OK fair enough, they expect us to understand basic programming structures like if-statements so you only get one slide on it in the first lecture. But they then expect you to be fully fluent in it after a couple of weeks and ask impossible things of you.

And thats just for C++. Don't get me started on Haskell - after 10 weeks teaching build a newsgroup analysis program. I don't actually know a single person in the whole class who know where to start even!

Rant over.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:33487

my teachers chilling i love my programming class

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:33694

I find it goes by at a decent speed. we got 1 and a half hour lectures and we learn quite a bit in that time. All kinds of shortened programming structures and concepts. It's going by at a decent speed . Don't like the lecture at 9:30 in the morning though. Hard to stay awake.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:33699

Yeah this semister is awesome, in php class we're already doing mysql, we're going at a nice speed.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3865, old post ID:33703