Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:37:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@glue.umd.edu> To: "Joel N. Weber II" <devnull@gnu.ai.mit.edu> Cc: peter@grendel.IAEhv.nl, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970929223324.4042T-100000@Journey2.mat.net> In-Reply-To: <199709300039.UAA27996@melange.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
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On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Joel N. Weber II wrote: > You're more of a designer > than an actual programmer. There are other people that are better > in that, like, well, us. You don't need a computer in the designing > phase. > > I don't think that computer science necissarily teaches good design, > either. At high school level, you'd be right. Not so at a good university, tho. Data structures (one course I'm presently taking) is all about design. Same is true of the operating systems course I took. In fact, if there's one big glaring hole that exists in university classes here, it's style; students are discouraged from reading each other's code, and there is no emphasis on asking students to read anyone else's code (such as some the the freely available code in FreeBSD). I think that reading some of the code in FreeBSD would teach good style, something that is sadly lacking in many students. Course, that just makes me look better. > > At least, none of the computer courses at my high school seem to teach > it adaquately. You can't learn the principals involved in writing a big > program from looking at toy problems that are no longer than a hundred > lines each. It's sort of silly watching a teacher explain how to break > Pascal programs of 50 lines into several procedures. For a program that > short, you can't see the value of procedures. When you're writing a > 15000 line program, you start to see the use of breaking up a program > like that. > > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@eng.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic, both FreeBSD (301) 220-2114 | version 3.0 current -- and great FUN! ----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
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