So this year is my first year in the IT section (our school system is a bit different than others).
So I have 2 different teachers. One, as I said, is teaching Java. The other one, for the time being, is teaching us stuff about hardware and some Assembly, and he could teach us C++ at the end of the year if some time's left.
So, about the Java guy:
Right now we're almost halfway through the year. And so far here's all we've done.
-We've studied UML, which in my opinion was a stupid waste of precious time.
-We've learned the datatypes, conditional operators and strings in Java.
-Now we're wasting time on Algorythms. Writing shit in Pseudo-Code and drawing useless schemes.
We haven't even talked about while, for and classes. Is that normal?
I find that programming in education is much different from that of reality. It's like the exam boards don't want the world to have any more programmers or something.
On my computing course, we spend more time writing documentation than actually programming (at a ratio of about 10:1). I know that I'm not going to want/need/have to write that much documentation in any career I intend to pursue.
We're a fair bit past that in my java class (1st semester just ended), but I wouldn't worry about it; the class means nothing, just a stepping stone. I know that most of the people in my class aren't even CPSC majors, it's just a pre-req for some engineering/math classes. I assume the difficulty gets stepped up after they weed out those people.
You are lucky to even HAVE a java class.
[QUOTE=Nikita;26781209]You are lucky to even HAVE a java class.[/QUOTE]
I hate Java. I'd prefer learning C++ instead.
teach yourself do not rely on a defunct education system for anything other than papers to get you a job
Even in university we get all that same shit (UML, pseudo-code, and tons of documentation), but in a much shorter time span, since we also have courses on C, Assembly, haskell, and whatnot. In principle the documenting and UML stuff is supposed to make you think ahead about your designs. Not really my strongest point as a programmer who wants to get his hands dirty asap.
I remember my class focused more on the basic semantics of programming using that Alice program. It did get me a grasp on how you should be programming, but in the end, I had to teach myself the syntax of the other languages as well as certain useful algorithms.
Also, trust me, writing (or even drawing out) what you're going to do on paper can be extremely helpful when debugging or figuring out how an algorithm works. Although, I've never actually wrote anything down in full-fledged pseudo-code or UML. I usually have diagrams and notes of how the algorithm will be done because it's for my understanding, not everyone elses.
[QUOTE=Soda;26782766]teach yourself do not rely on a defunct education system for anything other than papers to get you a job[/QUOTE]
This.
And also don't just teach yourself from one source (e.g. one book, one video series, etc), but vary your sources.
“Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.”
- Eric S. Raymond
You need to start learning stuff on your own in the meantime. Practice is probably the most important thing if you want to become a good programmer. On the other hand, learning algorithms is probably necessary unless you want to spend the rest of your life gluing APIs together.
Start doing programming on your own. Google is an excellent tool, and the Java API will tell you anything about the features already built into Java.
My programming class is awful, but I keep a strong grade by being able to code anything way faster than anyone else.
The problem is that I don't find what we do challenging at all. The most challenging thing we could do is going on the web to search a method name we don't know.
I just finished my 12 week semester where I took a module of java programming, with no previous programming experience required (and I didn't have any), and in that 12 weeks we started with data types and all that jazz and we've covered I assume most of the main aspects of the language, enough for us to carry on on our own if we weren't taking it next semester, so I would say all this stuff about documentation is a waste of time until you actually know how to make something. If you want to learn more faster I recommend you should get a textbook which has exercises for you to do as you learn.
At the time, I assumed most of our college (same as high school in US) computing syllabus was completely pointless but in hindsight I have to say that a lot of the "abstract" stuff like pseudocode and entity relationship diagrams comes in use later on when working on large projects.
I'm studying games development and as any programmer will tell you it's absolute suicide to jump in and code without at least some planning. A good programmer can learn and utilise any language with minimal effort if he understands how the abstract shit works.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
