Subj : Re: Are programmers like this in the real world?
To   : comp.programming
From : Artie Gold
Date : Sat Jul 23 2005 09:51 pm

Mike Deeth wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>      I've been coding for over a decade in all sorts of languages, as a
> hobby.  My career is mathematics.  As such I was obligated to take an
> intro programming class.  "Well" I said to myself, "let's get this over
> with, it's the last 'nonsense' course needed for the degree so from
> here on out it'll be all upper division and graduate math classes.
> Anyway, I'll probably learn some new stuff!"

And you might.
> 
>      Boy was that last part ever off.
> 
>      If I ran a company, I wouldn't let any of these people within 10
> feet of a computer.  I wouldn't trust them to write "hello world".  And
> that includes the instructor.
>      We get an assignment.  Sieve of eratosthenes-- no problem at all.
> Have it working in 5 minutes, just like I'm sure anyone on this NG
> could as well.  Then I find out that to pretty much everyone else in
> the class, it was the assignment from hell, hours of hair pulling, most
> didn't finish at all.  What the hell?

Right. It's an *introductory* course.

>      One of my classmates works at Microsoft.  He does assembly and
> works with unix.  So this guy should have it together, right?  Wrong.

Either a hardware guy or a sysadmin. Different discipline.

>      As he describes how he spent 3 hours on the Sieve before finally
> dispatching a bug, I am intrigued.  What, oh what, sort of exotic bug
> could so thwart such a professional coder?  "Oh, well, in my for loop I
> was checking i against queue.size() and of course queue.size() changed
> whenever I dequeued."  (Jaw hits floor.  This guy makes a PAYCHECK??)
> "Ahh yes.. that one will get you every time" I say politely... thinking
> to myself, I wouldn't trust this guy to run Spybot for my grandma's
> infected machine.

Right. He makes a paycheck, but not as a programmer.

>      In class the instructor proclaims he will enlighten us by showing
> us how to reverse the order of a singly-linked list.  "So how would we
> go about doing this?" he asks, that knowing gleam in his eye.  I
> chuckle to myself, at his and my shared secret:  a couple book-keeping
> variables for _next and _prev and this'll be just a routine run through
> the list.  Nope.  "Of course, we will just push the whole entire list
> onto a stack and then push it back!"  That strange smell is my faith in
> humanity being engulfed in the flames of hellfire.

Other than the fact that you mistyped `pop' as `push', what's the 
problem? It's still O(n) -- and `destructively' was not part of the 
presented problem.

>      So this has to just be because it's an intro class.  It has to, I
> assure myself, with some desperation.  Then I head over to the CSC
> computer lab.  After hearing a large group of senior level CSC students
> struggle for about an hour with the sublimely vexing problem of
> non-blocking sockets, my earlier assurance evaporates.
> 
For them, it's obviously a new topic.

>      Now I think I understand better why in general programmers are
> treated like shit.  If these people are the bold new generation of
> keyboard commandos, then I say their cheap cubicles are more than they
> deserve.  And no fucking wonder companies want to outsource-- if this
> is the shit produced in the USA!
> 
>      So the reason I'm writing is to desperately try and get
> reassurance this is not how all programmers are.  Please, I beg of you,
> tell me that 99% of these people will end up greeting people at Walmart
> and not within 50 feet of a computer.
> 
Well, obviously you're the smartest guy in whatever room you happen to 
find yourself...
> Exasperated,
....which, given your general attitude, is obviously terribly exasperating...
> Nathan
....not to mention having induced a serious identity problem...
> 
Cheers,
--ag

-- 
Artie Gold -- Austin, Texas
http://it-matters.blogspot.com (new post 12/5)
http://www.cafepress.com/goldsays
"If you have nothing to hide, you're not trying!"

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