"Please help me with my homework"

Hobbes

argh! One of my pet peeves with people asking questions is thier question of "I can't work out problem x" translates to "Please write my project for me".

Had some guy ask me to look at his course code to find out why he couldn't connect to database. The code was 2.5 classes all of which referenced various other classes in his package, only he didn't have those. I asked him about the other classes he was referencing and all I got was blank looks which seemed to suggest he just copied someone elses while they were still working on it.

I asked to see his plan he had laid out for the structure of his program and he gives me his exam paper. :rolleyes: At that point I just gave up and told him to hassle me when he actually had his project written.

The Corinthian

My fav was one of these chaps who subseqently came round looking for a job from me:

"And the fact that I know you don't even bother trying is supposed to make me want to hire you..?"

Hobbes

I guess my all time favorite was for a previous job I had to do up an exam for my replacement (I had already handed in my notice).

Simple exam, just trying to see if a person had an aptitude for the work rather then the skill in development. (Eg, a lot of the work involved writing software for machinary that may have no instructions on use as well as it's own coding. So most times you would have an output with a cryptic input). Only one question was technical.

Of course at the time I didn't realise that one of the managers had already gotten one of his relations/friends/whatever pegged for the job but gave him the exam anyway.

One of the other managers was decent enough to show me what he wrote. Basically for each answer for the questions he had written...

"This question is BS"
"This person doesn't know anything"
"BS Question again"
"First year stuff"
and for the technical question... "This is simple maths"

As well as other colourful stuff. At the time I was pretty pissed about it. The manager who was going to hire him went on about how great he was and he is much more qualified then you (and he was). They hired him on higher wages then I was currently getting.

After about 2-3 weeks on the job they realised the guy was a chancer and thick as pig **** when it came to programming (to give you an idea I had to explain what a Byte, Hexadecimel and binary was to him and he still didn't get it).

They ended up hiring someone on short notice that I suggested that could do the job (Who's skills were well beyond mine at the time but seemed to have problems getting a job). He got hired on lower wages then me. :rolleyes:

Which is why I guess I'm wary when people start quoting off thier schooling as thier proof they can do a job.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Hobbes
Which is why I guess I'm wary when people start quoting off thier schooling as thier proof they can do a job.

I'd very much agree with you there. I've found that many who do a Computer Science degree become adept only at copying other people's code (we once interviewed two chaps who were in the same class who supplied identical code as their example of 'own work'). At the same time, people with no training at all can often be a nightmare to deal with ("what's 'indenting'?").

One in five who come out of BSc's or Fás courses are worth anything. The rest are jsut doing it because the reckoned there was money in it.

My own theory is that a programmer is someone who can view problems in a structured and logical way, but can still approach them 'laterally'.

Above all, it's a vocation, IMHO. One question I'll always ask is on the lines of "what do you do on weekends/do you use a PC at home, and what for?" If your answer is "I leave computers at work", I'm already writing your Dear John letter.

nahdoic

i'll be doing my INTRA interviews next year.
I'll make sure to mention how I use the computer at the weekend thx!

Greenbean

One thing about colleges, is they ain't at all interested in creating programmers for the work place, they want to create post graduate students to do all the research - a computer science course is very impractical and very theoretical. I'd say you get 1/5th coming out well clued in, but only because of their personal interest and background work in computers. These are the guys that probably knew enough to get a job before college but were too young and wanted a degree under the belt. Grab them if you can, not only do they know whats going on, but they now have a good ground in the theory and can adapt to new technologies, talk about why such and such an algorithm is too complex and push stategies to simplify it etc.

Another 2/5th's will come out with only what the course taught them - ie all the theory - but totally unproven for being able to do the work and the final project probably being the first bit of real programming they've done (stick me in this category). Most should, with a bit of training be able to get up to scratch and in time accelerate their skills be fairly adaptable - the copying, messing around, and not learning other programming languages in your spare time is probably indictative of the college system (and student's attitudes in general). Its party time like. A good cold slap in the face by real-life quickly sobers this 2/5th's up and eventually they get themselves into gear.

The last 2/5th's will bull****, screw around, move into other fields to survive in the workplace, hey its what got them through college!

satchmo

Too right Greenbean, that's pretty much the size of it.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Greenbean
A good cold slap in the face by real-life quickly sobers this 2/5th's up and eventually they get themselves into gear.

A fair point.

The last 2/5th's will bull****, screw around, move into other fields to survive in the workplace, hey its what got them through college!

Project management, normally...

d4r3n

Originally posted by Greenbean
I'd say you get 1/5th coming out well clued in, but only because of their personal interest and background work in computers. These are the guys that probably knew enough to get a job before college but were too young and wanted a degree under the belt.

id like to think of myself as one of those people, i know several languages atm and have been doing freelance work 2years now for people who realise that and arent just the kind that are like "show me your degree or fo", unfortunately i probably wont get enough points in the leaving cert because i find it too boring to get into the comp-sci course of my choice. so ill have to pay to do it at night to get my degree and then try get more work, but what else can you do

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by d4r3n
but what else can you do

study?

Mutz

One thing about colleges, is they ain't at all interested in creating programmers for the work place, they want to create post graduate students to do all the research - a computer science course is very impractical and very theoretical

Not exactly on the head.... I'm in an IT and think that everything they do is practical, No such theory involved.

You get an assignment and you do it.

2 Years of Java under my belt and still haven't covered most of the langauge, but still fairly handy with it, so maybe thats what the error in Teaching is.... Not fast enough......

I do agree with the Copying code etc is a bit lame, but that can also have a good effect, it Brings out hybrid programs and creates a good Team Working enviornment, (my View, not everyones), everyone gets stuck at one point.

GoneShootin

is they ain't at all interested in creating programmers for the work place,

just the same as Mutz point really. Im in CIT, and i only started Java this year [Diploma year]. Our final year project [which we handed up thurs] was set to us by a Company wanting a database driven program. Simple stuff im sure to yoiu guys but it kept us very busy.

The fact that it was for an outside company, and not made up by some internal examiner made the project all the more "real". I have no experience of such in colleges, ala UCC and wat have you, but so far from talking to ppl it seems that IT's in general are far more biased towards practical "real life" stuff over theory....

correct me if im wrong....

yossarin

hey d4r3n -

theres a good course in trinity that Jazz and I did in our heady undergrad days - its only about 300 points and is a good CS type course. 4 years though...

Gavin

ICT (in trinity) is alrightish. Not very hard. Concentrates on Java, but you get a degree at the end of it..

Gav

Trojan

Hey lads,

Just wondering if the board needs a tidy-up or if everyones happy about it (e.g. dyis consider this thread off-topic? I dont, personally). Any comments?

On-Topic comment:

The IT/RTC courses are a fair bit more practical generally speaking.

At the end of the day, good programmers will be people who *like* programming. They'll be found in any course, and should shine through even if the course is crap. My €0.02...

Al.

Kix

As someone who's had to look at a lot of CVs coming in for programming jobs recently I'd have to say that I'm appalled at the lack of programming experience people coming from University IT degree courses have.

We had one guy here for a couple of months, lovely guy, probably a honours degree too but an absolutely hopeless programmer. I mean clueless. I was spoonfeeding him for ages, hoping the penny would drop - it didn't.

The final straw was him looking at a single line of code for three hours. He had a very simple change to make, I'd pointed out the line to him, FFS. A very straight forward conditional expression - if you read it out loud it made perfect sence as an english sentence. He couldn't see it; couldn't figure out what to do.

This after four years of an IT degree! He's moved on to persue other lines of work.

It's a real vocation as far as I see it. If I don't see on your CV that you're "into" computers in a big way - forget it. If you don't have a love for it, you'll never be any good. Even if you love it and you don't have the aptitude - the ability to achieve that level of Zen-like focus which I always take as the mark of a really good programmer - forget it.

I've trained quite a few people; some get it and become good productive programmers. Some never do. You either have it or you don't.

K

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by Verb
ICT (in trinity) is alrightish. Not very hard. Concentrates on Java, but you get a degree at the end of it..

Gav

i'm completely thick

yossarin

that's a little unfair - its a good course.

I learned tons doing it

Baz_

dont mind dbc yossarin, he has a superiority complex, you learn to tolerate it after a while.

DeadBankClerk

i am only trolling

yossarin

yeah i know - but its a sore point as a lot of muppets go through the course

Baz_

actually that reminds of the first year the leaving certificate applied was run, it was called the leaving certificate applied program, which was lcap for short, cap for shorter and than transformed to capper, needless to say the name was changed pretty quickly, that year in fact with the dropping of the p.

jd

Originally posted by The Corinthian

My own theory is that a programmer is someone who can view problems in a structured and logical way, but can still approach them 'laterally'.

Above all, it's a vocation, IMHO. One question I'll always ask is on the lines of "what do you do on weekends/do you use a PC at home, and what for?" If your answer is "I leave computers at work", I'm already writing your Dear John letter.

mm you'd want to be careful on that one.
I'd certainly use the computer at home after work /weekends for stuff that may be code related, but computers are just ..computers.
Some antisocial virginal geek would be a pain in the ass to work with..there is more to life than that.
My Old man is a research scientist, and while he brings his work home with him sometimes..he will try and switch off and do other things too..

The Corinthian

Originally posted by jd
Some antisocial virginal geek would be a pain in the ass to work with..there is more to life than that.

There is, but I'd not be interested in hiring someone to be my friend.

Baz_

Originally posted by The Corinthian

There is, but I'd not be interested in hiring someone to be my friend.

Thats a very good answer

jd

Originally posted by The Corinthian

There is, but I'd not be interested in hiring someone to be my friend.

,
i suppose I was trolling a bit, but what I'm saying is that I don't think its necessary/desireable for someone to spend their life in fron to a computer if they want a programming job..

BTBB

Personally I'm part of the 1/5th. The problem is that my Leaving Cert. is in 3 weeks time. Is the Trinity(Computer Science) course any good? I also want to learn the nitty-gritty of networking, drivers, coding theory, hardware and evreything else that will add to my understanding of computers at every level.

Essentially I want a Degree under my belt (possibly a Masters) to make me employable.

Is this on topic?

BTBB

DeadBankClerk

im in second year cs in tcd.
we lots of hardware and programming.
no network anything as of yet, but you can learn anything you want, they have every book ever published in uk/ireland in the library.

Quigs Snr

I did my 4 years in DCU. At the end of which I had learned nothing which I have subsequently used in my professional career (which started off as working for a software house, followed by a couple of years of freelance/contracting and now consists of a bit of both). I would say that about 5% of what I did in my degree I have since used.

The stuff I did on INTRA was far more useful and that was more of an education than the other 3.5 yrs at DCU. That said what DCU did give me was an reason for employers to talk to me. The sad reality is that I was as good a programmer when I went into college as many are when they come out. The difference being that if I hadn't gotten the qualification it would have been very difficult to get any employer to talk to me. Really what your degree is is a foot in the door I think. Most of the interesting stuff I did was on my own time and in work experience.

You just have to serve your time I suppose.

BTBB

You just have to serve your time I suppose.

Those were my thoughts unfortunatley. Trinity CS is the only course which doesn't have work experiance from what I've seen. According to the Course Director though a lot of students do summer work(i.e. "on my own time").

Thanks for the advice.

BTBB

Thorbar

Comp sys in UL seems to be a bit of a split between the two. We're doing one module on programming where we're doing c++ so far, and another module on Comp hardware, binary arithmetic, assembly code. Then on the other hand we have a module on fairly complex computer math and computer science, which cover a lot of theory and little stuff that we'll use directly in the work place. Having said that I think the stuff will make us better programmers over all. Also you spend a term and a summer away on co-op in second year. Not sure if its a jack of all trades master of none so far.