CS-insanity and things that make me want to quit
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Why do you assume that there is only one solution? There is one algorithm for the GoL, but there are a huge number of different ways to implement it, many of which don't use a single for loop, much less four! And that before you even start thinking about multithreading solutions, pointer arithmetic, and so forth. Think about the first "only way to do it" for GoL: why do you want a 2D "board" when you can use a 1D array much more efficiently? Think about Bubble Sort: there are as many different way to implement it as there are developers actually writing the code! And when you've written it, it's obvious that it's not very efficient for most "real world" collections to be sorted, and that a couple of simple changes would vastly improve the efficiency, and implementing that and a testing framework to measure the improvements. Going in with the mindset of "it's all been done" is a major limit on how you can think about problems, let alone solutions...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
Actually when you are telling me that, it sounds really fun and I would love to try that, but my CS-exercises are not like that. They are like: You have a 2-d array and bla, bla, bla and yes make that game with those ingredients. Well, there is not much space for creativity here. Believe me, I sat few days and try to impress my teacher that I'm really passionate about it, and I'm not like those who just copy and paste and go the easy way... But I looked in my books for some inspiration, but it looks like there is only that one solution - those four for loops... If there is you can do that in different way, if I missed something. Beleive me, I will fight with that program from morning to night to find a better way. Because what I see is that I sweat and sweat and in the end of the day I come up with the same solution that everyone copied, and the teacher doesn't see a difference from my code and theirs anyway... The difference is just that I was stupid and didn't sleep in many days and they just memorize the solution and learned how it works. But thank you fro your answer, it really gives me a hope.
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Eesh, this is why I had to stop making pizza; got tired of copy and pasting pepperoni from other companies. On the serious side, look at your pizza analogy a different way. Each ingredient is a piece that has already been solved. You might not care how that cheese or pepperoni came to be, and you'll probably not have an improvement on how it's made, but you know it goes on that pizza. At some point, you learned how to use that ingredient, and why you might want it in the first place. You likely know what makes a good pizza topping, and what does not. In some cases, maybe you'll want to make your own dough. Are you going to reinvent dough into something the world has never seen? -of course not, but it can still be satisfying to make, even knowing others have already done so. At the end of the day, appreciate the learning of why you might want that/a solution, rather than just, "I know where to copy the answer from." Your creativity will certainly not suffer.
But this is the problem. If I sweat and work on my solution, I usually come with the same solution that many people just memorize and learn how it works and it's not different from my code which make me sit from the early morning to the latly night to write it and in the end of the day, the teacher will probably think that I also copy that from somewhere. Not even at real exams I can prove that my hard work was worth it. When I fight with some problem because I want to come up with my own solution, someone writes down what he/she memorized from a tutorial or a book and he/she gets better grade. This is what I hate about those algorithms, they don't measure your knowledge anyway. Making your own program shows that no one did it, you invented yourself.
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My impression is that he's in a world of copy-and-paste. He may think of it differently. He may describe himself differently. His first source is to see what someone else has done and copy it. I'm one of those self-taught types. Wallowing in errors - and the thrill of solving one - and even more, all the stuff learned in solving it. And - like "way back when" with a paper encyclopedia or dictionary: after you look something up, how can you resist looking at some other things that followed it or preceded it since, after all, the book's already opened and before you. In C, I looped through an array using indices. Then I came across someone incrementing a pointer, instead, and using that? Why? It was a tool in my mind for recursive functions (like English-to-Piglatin converter). So much overhead just went away. Ah Ha ! Even his complaint is a rehash of Ecclesiastes. The difference, of course, is that Solomon experimented with changing his views and developed insights. As you know, I occasionally get harsh - but this guy's so full of himself. It is the one facet of his arguments that is consistent. Admittedly, I follow the philosophical hubris of Hannibal:
"If I cannot find a way I shall make one!"
(or know the reason why)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
If you have an exercise where you have certain limitation. The teacher want you to make a game that follows strict rules, how can you experiment? Can you experiment when you drive a car? No, a car drives allways in the same manner. You can't experiment and put a gas when want stop the car. The same with Conways game, if you have to use 2d array, make it with one loop. If you make it using only one loop, I will come back here and tell everyone that I'm a clown and I'm sorry. Please, don't compare CS to being self-taught. As self-taught you do whatever program you like to, and read whatever bookm you want to, and you can experiment how much you want. I would love to do that. But when you take a loan and you have to find solution to a problem, where you are restricted by instructions than you can't experiment. Of course, you can sweat and fight with it but the result will be not different from someone who copied it from internet.
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My impression is that he's in a world of copy-and-paste. He may think of it differently. He may describe himself differently. His first source is to see what someone else has done and copy it. I'm one of those self-taught types. Wallowing in errors - and the thrill of solving one - and even more, all the stuff learned in solving it. And - like "way back when" with a paper encyclopedia or dictionary: after you look something up, how can you resist looking at some other things that followed it or preceded it since, after all, the book's already opened and before you. In C, I looped through an array using indices. Then I came across someone incrementing a pointer, instead, and using that? Why? It was a tool in my mind for recursive functions (like English-to-Piglatin converter). So much overhead just went away. Ah Ha ! Even his complaint is a rehash of Ecclesiastes. The difference, of course, is that Solomon experimented with changing his views and developed insights. As you know, I occasionally get harsh - but this guy's so full of himself. It is the one facet of his arguments that is consistent. Admittedly, I follow the philosophical hubris of Hannibal:
"If I cannot find a way I shall make one!"
(or know the reason why)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Please, don't compare being self-taught and CS. When you are self-taught you can experiment as much as you want because you do stuff that you want to do, and if you come up with a solution for bubble sort and Conways game of life on the way, good for you. If I could do my own stuff, and wasn't bound by the limitations of the instructions I get, I would do the same. But if you have strict instructions with strict rules and the deadline, and the loan than you don't fight and play with prewritten algorithm that someone already invented, because after few days of sweating and hard work your solution is not different from one that people copy from internet. And when it comes to certain algortihms you only can do it in one way, like bubble sort for example. But I understand, It hard for you to swallow that you're not smart just because you can implement other people's solution. In fact,you are full of yourself if you don't realize that and think that your implementation of common algorithms is your own.
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I'm so mad at myself... I took a loan for be able to make this degree. I was so stupid, now I'm stuck and I have to continue that path to get a job. Well, nevermind I just memorize all those algorithms just to copy them from my memory and explain to the teachers and the interviews what it is that I copied - they don't even know the difference. Let them be glad. Let me copy and paste all this crap from my memory, and take money in the end of the day... Whatever... If there is something that you find you love to do, don't be too enthusiastic, it's a trap. You will never do in your life what you love to do even if it's related to what you love to do. Life is a torture, whatever path in life you take... Sorry for all those messages, I'm so disapointed with life...
Member 14971499 wrote:
Life is a torture, whatever path in life you take... Sorry for all those messages, I'm so disapointed with life...
I would very seriously advise you to seek help: talk to family and friends and don't let despair get the best of you. Pound for pound, grey matter and specially functioning grey matter is one of the rarest commodities on Earth and once you've be given a few pounds of it, you should take good care of it. Getting back to your dissapoinmets with CS and without knowing anything about your program:
- Keep in mind that you cannot have any program tailored specifically for you. There are others in your class that might have different needs. Be considerate to them.
- There is no "perfect" method for teaching any science let alone "computer science". I put that in quotation marks because I'm not even sure it's truly a science or an art (Knuth titled his seminal work "The Art of Computer Programming"). Your instructor tries to teach you at the same time the syntax of a programming language, some basic data structures and algorithms and maybe give you a feeling for what real world problems might look like. It is hard to do all that. Be considerate of his efforts.
- There is always a balance between reinventing the wheel and blindly doing copy/paste from the Internet. Learn when you can get something already made and when you have to use your own grey matter.
To finish, let me tell you the story of my first program: first year; first CS course; language was FORTRAN (yes, I'm old). I meet a friend in second year and tell him I was bored with the homework (kind of like you) and he says "I have an interesting problem for you: write a program to find all the positions of 8 queens on a chessboard so that no one attacks another one." I write the program and, surprise, it doesn't work. My logical conclusion is that the compiler has made a mistake and I decide to search for it. I get the assembly language listing of my program and start analyzing it. But to do that I have first to learn assembly. Then I start marveling at how the compiler knew how to translate program and in the process I learn about formal languages, LL(n) and LR(n) grammars. Never finished my eight queen
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Member 14971499 wrote:
Life is a torture, whatever path in life you take... Sorry for all those messages, I'm so disapointed with life...
I would very seriously advise you to seek help: talk to family and friends and don't let despair get the best of you. Pound for pound, grey matter and specially functioning grey matter is one of the rarest commodities on Earth and once you've be given a few pounds of it, you should take good care of it. Getting back to your dissapoinmets with CS and without knowing anything about your program:
- Keep in mind that you cannot have any program tailored specifically for you. There are others in your class that might have different needs. Be considerate to them.
- There is no "perfect" method for teaching any science let alone "computer science". I put that in quotation marks because I'm not even sure it's truly a science or an art (Knuth titled his seminal work "The Art of Computer Programming"). Your instructor tries to teach you at the same time the syntax of a programming language, some basic data structures and algorithms and maybe give you a feeling for what real world problems might look like. It is hard to do all that. Be considerate of his efforts.
- There is always a balance between reinventing the wheel and blindly doing copy/paste from the Internet. Learn when you can get something already made and when you have to use your own grey matter.
To finish, let me tell you the story of my first program: first year; first CS course; language was FORTRAN (yes, I'm old). I meet a friend in second year and tell him I was bored with the homework (kind of like you) and he says "I have an interesting problem for you: write a program to find all the positions of 8 queens on a chessboard so that no one attacks another one." I write the program and, surprise, it doesn't work. My logical conclusion is that the compiler has made a mistake and I decide to search for it. I get the assembly language listing of my program and start analyzing it. But to do that I have first to learn assembly. Then I start marveling at how the compiler knew how to translate program and in the process I learn about formal languages, LL(n) and LR(n) grammars. Never finished my eight queen
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There is an argument for ignorance being really useful - not only for debugging, where describing a problem to a moron can really help you work out what you did wrong, but also in the sense that if you don't know something can't be done, there is no barrier to your trying. And sometimes, just sometimes, you can get it to work and then it was obvious all along! I've done that a few times, and it's wonderful when you have the impossible working ... but most of the time you fall flat on your face, or set fire to the desk by accident :-D But this one comes over as a child: he wants to be handed solutions but he wants to "solve" really complicated problems without the effort of learning how. Sad really - particularly since it's costing him a lot of money to ignore the opportunities he has in front of him.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
At first, I wasn't going to keep extending this but I happen to probably make my living, to no small extent, off of governance. I wall readily admit that it would not be difficult to find a "better" programmer than me. I have learned, in a way, a patchwork and much of the theory . . . I don't even know what I don't know. Actually, that was also true in the world of Chemistry. But in the latter, having never taken a course in catalysis or surface chemistry I came up with the idea of Induced Surface Ensembles on Transition Metal Surfaces. Inspired by a (fired) mathematician that was sitting next to me who told mine (ironically in this current context!) about predator-prey games. Computer modeled (Monte-carlo 2-D surface simulatation), proven experimentally as well, and patented by employer - and Marcel-Decker wanted me to write a book on Computer in Chemistry. All this in a bunch of field in which I was, well, truly ignorant. In grad school, I invented several pieces of equipment (simple stuff) that became staples because they were such an improvement over what had been done (literly, orders of magnitude). &etc. Some rather famous persons, such as Gabor Somorjai[^], wanted to work with me - ignorance on their part ! Same for programming. One of the bosses here, now CEO, once said to me "what does every do here? Some give them some papers, they add something to it and give it to someone else. Everyone is doing the same thing." - hit me like a ton bricks as it soaked in. Especially since, at the time, I was reading about XML - and completely reoriented how I code. Not the fine details of it (a function of experience) but the global view. So - I work for an insurance underwriter. My applications are totally unaware of this. They'd work equally well for a restaurant or garage. Let the actual data accessorize it into distinctions. Why should I care? On the other hand, all else being equal, if you built the same functionality, it would be gang-busters better in organization and probably performance. So - as I've said before - I'm a paid problem-solver. Everything I know is applied to everything I do. That tired expression "think outside the box" - what box are they talking about?
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Hi! I study CS already few months and I start hating programming - something I used to love. I thought that programming was about being creative, about inventing things, but the only things that we keep doing at school is copying and pasting other people's ideas. I don't know what is the point of copying and pasting other peoples algorithms? Especially when you program in Java which have a massive library with all those alorithms prewritten. What is the point of building a bubble-sort algorithm from scratch if you have a massive Java-libraries with all algorithms already prewritten? So what's the point of the classes and whole idea of object orientation and reusable code if the job-interviewers and the school is expecting from you to reinvent the wheel? Because they want to test your intelligence? How is this testing my intelligence if solving algorithmic problems is just about memorizing other people's solutions thanks to photographic memory and pasting them on the whiteboard from your memory then explaining to the teacher or the inteviewer what it is that you copied. And those problems are all the same - only written with different words. By memorizing all common algorithms from books you can solve all of them by finding analogy without even using your brain for a second just like those russian chess players who won tournaments by memorizing all chess openings from books. The funny thing that I always read on the internet is people writing something like "I was bored, so I created Conway's game of life". Like what? You didn't create anything. You just reimplemented someone's idea from a book or from a tutorial from a guy who also copied it from a book or a tutorial. You copied and pasted a solution that someone already came up with. Because, can you make a Conway's game of life without those famous 4 loops? You can maybe create a class or a different method but those 4 loops you have to copy and past. So what is the point of doing all this copying and past? I'm so bored. Why is programming so boring? All these stupid games and algorithms that we have to copy and past. I would love to build my own program, that I invented, with solutions that I came up with and not recreate some prehistoric code... Is this hwo this job will look like in the future? I thought I would be free to create something that is mine, that I can stand for and not be a living scanner. Maybe I should be a writer instead? As a creative person I feel tormented by my school and the thought that this is how my job will look like the rest of my
Just get through it the best you can. I have used very little of my CS degree in any of the work I have done in 16+ years as a developer. bubble sort, never had to use it or understand it in any real world solution. That's me though. Other people's stories may be different. get your CS degree so you can get your first couple of jobs, then after that, it is pure work experience. If you are still doing this after 5-7 years, you will probably do it for life. good luck.
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If you have an exercise where you have certain limitation. The teacher want you to make a game that follows strict rules, how can you experiment? Can you experiment when you drive a car? No, a car drives allways in the same manner. You can't experiment and put a gas when want stop the car. The same with Conways game, if you have to use 2d array, make it with one loop. If you make it using only one loop, I will come back here and tell everyone that I'm a clown and I'm sorry. Please, don't compare CS to being self-taught. As self-taught you do whatever program you like to, and read whatever bookm you want to, and you can experiment how much you want. I would love to do that. But when you take a loan and you have to find solution to a problem, where you are restricted by instructions than you can't experiment. Of course, you can sweat and fight with it but the result will be not different from someone who copied it from internet.
Such a narrow view. If you were a horse they'd call that a result of blinders. So you re-code that new nemesis of yours, that game. You make the instructor happy. And at the same time, figure out how to enhance it - make it do more - experiment with it. In fact, you could learn how to leave 'stubs' in your code for later additions. The thing is, the world is full of mindless hacks creating unimaginative code. Where I work, they get that quality whenever they outsource - particularly to "foreign lands". It's just the way it is. It's not that the people in those places are less smart - they just turned a craft into an assembly line and they get to produce products, accordingly. Myself? I will argue with whomever wants me to build an application (assuming it doesn't fit into the abstract ones that can handle most things as-is). Ultimately, senior management gets my point and agrees - even if one of them is debating with me. I explain why until they understand - and if they still want something, OK. They all understand that it's easier for me to just code shit as people request it then to argue so it's done correctly. Loved? Maybe not. Respected. So, your exercise is only limited by a narrow view of following the instructions to the letter. You can make more of it . . . or continue your path to the assembly line in some field of endeavor.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Well, what you described is the real world problem. Now I wonder how you apply bubble sort and Conways game to that? So how you solve the problem you described? Well, you look at the existing libraries or you come up with your own solution. Algorthmic problems? Allways. Reinventing the wheel just to feel like you're intelligent, I think is showing more stupidity than intelligence.
Member 14971499 wrote:
Now I wonder how you apply bubble sort and Conways game to that?
You don't. If I may use an analogy from another field, every carpenter has to know how to drive nails with a hammer. However, building a table requires much more than that: selecting the right sort of wood, measuring, cutting, assembly, finishing etc. Learning how to write bubblesort or Conway's game of life is similar to the toy projects that you are given while learning to be a carpenter. They are not too hard for a beginner, and they teach you something about coding (or carpentry). If you are self-taught, this sort of approach may be frustrating at first. However, a good course will use even these simple projects to teach good practices such as code factoring, documentation, etc.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Actually when you are telling me that, it sounds really fun and I would love to try that, but my CS-exercises are not like that. They are like: You have a 2-d array and bla, bla, bla and yes make that game with those ingredients. Well, there is not much space for creativity here. Believe me, I sat few days and try to impress my teacher that I'm really passionate about it, and I'm not like those who just copy and paste and go the easy way... But I looked in my books for some inspiration, but it looks like there is only that one solution - those four for loops... If there is you can do that in different way, if I missed something. Beleive me, I will fight with that program from morning to night to find a better way. Because what I see is that I sweat and sweat and in the end of the day I come up with the same solution that everyone copied, and the teacher doesn't see a difference from my code and theirs anyway... The difference is just that I was stupid and didn't sleep in many days and they just memorize the solution and learned how it works. But thank you fro your answer, it really gives me a hope.
Member 14971499 wrote:
But I looked in my books for some inspiration, but it looks like there is only that one solution - those four for loops...
I can tell those loops have been driving you crazy! :laugh: But despite what you say about "copy and paste", what you say in the quote above is that instead of wanting to copy + paste those four loops, you decided to look in some books for someone else's idea so you could copy and paste that idea instead... The other thing to remember is that although you might be coming up with the same solutions that others are copy+pasting, you are learning how to write code to solve a problem; the others in your class are learning how to copy + paste, and as soon as they hit a real-world problem that doesn't have a solution on the 'net, they'll be lost - and you'll be soaring away. In the meantime, if the algorithms really hold no challenge for you, then experiment with the syntax; experiment with writing the shortest code, or the fastest, or the most obscure. There are more ways than one to be creative in development. Good luck, and I hope your tutor sets some more "interesting" tasks for you soon!
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Member 14971499 wrote:
But I looked in my books for some inspiration, but it looks like there is only that one solution - those four for loops...
I can tell those loops have been driving you crazy! :laugh: But despite what you say about "copy and paste", what you say in the quote above is that instead of wanting to copy + paste those four loops, you decided to look in some books for someone else's idea so you could copy and paste that idea instead... The other thing to remember is that although you might be coming up with the same solutions that others are copy+pasting, you are learning how to write code to solve a problem; the others in your class are learning how to copy + paste, and as soon as they hit a real-world problem that doesn't have a solution on the 'net, they'll be lost - and you'll be soaring away. In the meantime, if the algorithms really hold no challenge for you, then experiment with the syntax; experiment with writing the shortest code, or the fastest, or the most obscure. There are more ways than one to be creative in development. Good luck, and I hope your tutor sets some more "interesting" tasks for you soon!
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Such a narrow view. If you were a horse they'd call that a result of blinders. So you re-code that new nemesis of yours, that game. You make the instructor happy. And at the same time, figure out how to enhance it - make it do more - experiment with it. In fact, you could learn how to leave 'stubs' in your code for later additions. The thing is, the world is full of mindless hacks creating unimaginative code. Where I work, they get that quality whenever they outsource - particularly to "foreign lands". It's just the way it is. It's not that the people in those places are less smart - they just turned a craft into an assembly line and they get to produce products, accordingly. Myself? I will argue with whomever wants me to build an application (assuming it doesn't fit into the abstract ones that can handle most things as-is). Ultimately, senior management gets my point and agrees - even if one of them is debating with me. I explain why until they understand - and if they still want something, OK. They all understand that it's easier for me to just code shit as people request it then to argue so it's done correctly. Loved? Maybe not. Respected. So, your exercise is only limited by a narrow view of following the instructions to the letter. You can make more of it . . . or continue your path to the assembly line in some field of endeavor.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
I always try to come with my own solution to a problem in my homeworks, but it always ends up with me being late and looking like an idiot with low IQ becuase everyone already did it, and than I at least try to rush it make it as easy for myself as I can and I end up with the solution that is all over the internet and I look like a fraud. Maybe I'm an idiot? And should come up with something revolutionary in three days, but well I can't... and then I wonder: Why do I even bother? Why not just memorize those algorithms because in the end of the day it doesn't make a difference.
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Hi! I study CS already few months and I start hating programming - something I used to love. I thought that programming was about being creative, about inventing things, but the only things that we keep doing at school is copying and pasting other people's ideas. I don't know what is the point of copying and pasting other peoples algorithms? Especially when you program in Java which have a massive library with all those alorithms prewritten. What is the point of building a bubble-sort algorithm from scratch if you have a massive Java-libraries with all algorithms already prewritten? So what's the point of the classes and whole idea of object orientation and reusable code if the job-interviewers and the school is expecting from you to reinvent the wheel? Because they want to test your intelligence? How is this testing my intelligence if solving algorithmic problems is just about memorizing other people's solutions thanks to photographic memory and pasting them on the whiteboard from your memory then explaining to the teacher or the inteviewer what it is that you copied. And those problems are all the same - only written with different words. By memorizing all common algorithms from books you can solve all of them by finding analogy without even using your brain for a second just like those russian chess players who won tournaments by memorizing all chess openings from books. The funny thing that I always read on the internet is people writing something like "I was bored, so I created Conway's game of life". Like what? You didn't create anything. You just reimplemented someone's idea from a book or from a tutorial from a guy who also copied it from a book or a tutorial. You copied and pasted a solution that someone already came up with. Because, can you make a Conway's game of life without those famous 4 loops? You can maybe create a class or a different method but those 4 loops you have to copy and past. So what is the point of doing all this copying and past? I'm so bored. Why is programming so boring? All these stupid games and algorithms that we have to copy and past. I would love to build my own program, that I invented, with solutions that I came up with and not recreate some prehistoric code... Is this hwo this job will look like in the future? I thought I would be free to create something that is mine, that I can stand for and not be a living scanner. Maybe I should be a writer instead? As a creative person I feel tormented by my school and the thought that this is how my job will look like the rest of my
I can 'sort' of relate. :laugh: Seriously though, I remember the boredom of learning to code by typing lines of code from a textbook, building silly little programs that did nothing original. In the intro level classes, one could get by just by following the spoon-fed examples from the book without much critical thinking. I can only guess that in the copy/paste age the boredom level has increased as you aren't even bothered with the typing aspect...actually reading through the program as you are constructing it. If you are in a formal program, you are just going to have to play the game. The classes will get harder as you progress and hopefully you'll feel more challenged. If not, there's all kinds of coding boot-camps and on-line courses that may be more what you are looking for. At any rate, I would suggest that you start by creating development tools that could prove useful down range...a better FTP utility, a database scripting utility, a password keeper...it doesn't matter, just something that helps in your daily activities...whatever, just make it your own...design it and build it from scratch. Don't confuse college exercises for real-world development. We're not just a bunch of robots copy/pasting code. (though done correctly, is quite acceptable) This job is at it's core is about solving problems for people using software...and getting paid well when you succeed. IMHO, software development is a craft where you can take nothing, make something, and charge people for it, just like artists, writers, poets, musicians, actors, etc. What we do might not always be sexy, but sometimes creativity is defined by not even noticing it. (a developer somewhere figured out how to get rid of a couple of nasty nested for loops by using a struct/array and your app loads much faster, who knows? If you noticed at all, it likely only increased your expectations.) Is that creativity, or just not being satisfied with the current incarnation of the wheel?...or quite possibly the result of an angry customer/boss who just expects them to do their job? So figure out what personal project you want to do and design and build it. Given the vast wealth of information at your fingertips, you are really only limited by your imagination and your will power. Good luck! :) BTW, I'd probably stay away from being a writer as your post has a few grammatical/readability issues. (of course, so does mine, but I'd be the last to call myself a writer!)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contag
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Hi! I study CS already few months and I start hating programming - something I used to love. I thought that programming was about being creative, about inventing things, but the only things that we keep doing at school is copying and pasting other people's ideas. I don't know what is the point of copying and pasting other peoples algorithms? Especially when you program in Java which have a massive library with all those alorithms prewritten. What is the point of building a bubble-sort algorithm from scratch if you have a massive Java-libraries with all algorithms already prewritten? So what's the point of the classes and whole idea of object orientation and reusable code if the job-interviewers and the school is expecting from you to reinvent the wheel? Because they want to test your intelligence? How is this testing my intelligence if solving algorithmic problems is just about memorizing other people's solutions thanks to photographic memory and pasting them on the whiteboard from your memory then explaining to the teacher or the inteviewer what it is that you copied. And those problems are all the same - only written with different words. By memorizing all common algorithms from books you can solve all of them by finding analogy without even using your brain for a second just like those russian chess players who won tournaments by memorizing all chess openings from books. The funny thing that I always read on the internet is people writing something like "I was bored, so I created Conway's game of life". Like what? You didn't create anything. You just reimplemented someone's idea from a book or from a tutorial from a guy who also copied it from a book or a tutorial. You copied and pasted a solution that someone already came up with. Because, can you make a Conway's game of life without those famous 4 loops? You can maybe create a class or a different method but those 4 loops you have to copy and past. So what is the point of doing all this copying and past? I'm so bored. Why is programming so boring? All these stupid games and algorithms that we have to copy and past. I would love to build my own program, that I invented, with solutions that I came up with and not recreate some prehistoric code... Is this hwo this job will look like in the future? I thought I would be free to create something that is mine, that I can stand for and not be a living scanner. Maybe I should be a writer instead? As a creative person I feel tormented by my school and the thought that this is how my job will look like the rest of my
Think of it that way... Why do people learn Pythagoras theorem and its various proof? This thing is at least 2000 years old! Plus how does that help with everyday work? Well, it's not at all about learning the algorithm by rote at all. It's about practicing your brain muscle, learning new ways of thinking, finding it yourself again easily when you forgot the theorem. I see your complain 2 ways. Either learning algorithm is tedious, which often expresses itself as "boring", and you need to practice. Or it really is easy, and then you only have to spend 5 minutes on it and perhaps you can secretly do something else while the teacher is dronning on... Or add some fancy unrequested twist to your demo...
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Hi! I study CS already few months and I start hating programming - something I used to love. I thought that programming was about being creative, about inventing things, but the only things that we keep doing at school is copying and pasting other people's ideas. I don't know what is the point of copying and pasting other peoples algorithms? Especially when you program in Java which have a massive library with all those alorithms prewritten. What is the point of building a bubble-sort algorithm from scratch if you have a massive Java-libraries with all algorithms already prewritten? So what's the point of the classes and whole idea of object orientation and reusable code if the job-interviewers and the school is expecting from you to reinvent the wheel? Because they want to test your intelligence? How is this testing my intelligence if solving algorithmic problems is just about memorizing other people's solutions thanks to photographic memory and pasting them on the whiteboard from your memory then explaining to the teacher or the inteviewer what it is that you copied. And those problems are all the same - only written with different words. By memorizing all common algorithms from books you can solve all of them by finding analogy without even using your brain for a second just like those russian chess players who won tournaments by memorizing all chess openings from books. The funny thing that I always read on the internet is people writing something like "I was bored, so I created Conway's game of life". Like what? You didn't create anything. You just reimplemented someone's idea from a book or from a tutorial from a guy who also copied it from a book or a tutorial. You copied and pasted a solution that someone already came up with. Because, can you make a Conway's game of life without those famous 4 loops? You can maybe create a class or a different method but those 4 loops you have to copy and past. So what is the point of doing all this copying and past? I'm so bored. Why is programming so boring? All these stupid games and algorithms that we have to copy and past. I would love to build my own program, that I invented, with solutions that I came up with and not recreate some prehistoric code... Is this hwo this job will look like in the future? I thought I would be free to create something that is mine, that I can stand for and not be a living scanner. Maybe I should be a writer instead? As a creative person I feel tormented by my school and the thought that this is how my job will look like the rest of my
I spend a significant amount of time reading and analyzing stuff written by others. I do this to learn, and the world is full of smart people willing to share their knowledge through papers and open source projects. There is also no lack of software developers who manage to trick themselves into believing they have come up with simple a solution to a complex problem - here are two common examples: * Synchronizing state across multiple systems is hard to get right, but can be done using [Paxos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxos\_(computer\_science)) or [Raft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raft\_(algorithm)). This *needs* to be properly handled when decisions will be made based on state information shared by multiple systems. * Scheduling is hard, problems like [job shop scheduling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job\_shop\_scheduling) and [nurse scheduling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse\_scheduling\_problem) may sound easy, but you cannot even pick the right algorithm for a particular problem without understanding it. There are often multiple algorithms that are known to provide a solution, but the performance can vary wildly depending in the input data. So, IMHO, get on with the learning - don't just - as you say - copy and paste solutions written by others.
Espen Harlinn Chief Architect - Powel AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Member 14971499 wrote:
But I looked in my books for some inspiration, but it looks like there is only that one solution - those four for loops...
I can tell those loops have been driving you crazy! :laugh: But despite what you say about "copy and paste", what you say in the quote above is that instead of wanting to copy + paste those four loops, you decided to look in some books for someone else's idea so you could copy and paste that idea instead... The other thing to remember is that although you might be coming up with the same solutions that others are copy+pasting, you are learning how to write code to solve a problem; the others in your class are learning how to copy + paste, and as soon as they hit a real-world problem that doesn't have a solution on the 'net, they'll be lost - and you'll be soaring away. In the meantime, if the algorithms really hold no challenge for you, then experiment with the syntax; experiment with writing the shortest code, or the fastest, or the most obscure. There are more ways than one to be creative in development. Good luck, and I hope your tutor sets some more "interesting" tasks for you soon!
By the way. Well, I think they are challanging. They are hard, but I don't like the way they are taught. I simply find those games boring, like the problem itself is very hard but if I could use them in my own game it would be much easier to learn. When I do my projects I love to solve the problems, because I want to see my game work, but because I find those games and examples in the exercises boring, I just want to rush through them so I can sit and work on my own game or program that will do what I find useful. If we had to implement the same logic from Conways game of life in a more fun game than I would enjoy it, but I'm bored by the game itself. The example itself is boring, not the problem itself. It's like those bankaccount projects. Is it the only program that can teach classes and objects? I believe someone can give some more engaging examples than this same bankaccount project that you can find in every book and tutorial. I read a book about game development and the author also implements some of the common algorithms but I think its fun to do it when use it an little rpg game and not this boring Conways game or just this raw bubble sort exercise. What I would like to know is what can I use those algorithms for, because it's easier to learn things when you know why you need to learn something.
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And of course ... the dreaded Ham and Pineapple ... :laugh: Truly the VB of pizza!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
Trust me, ham and pineapple is almost normal. I saw, and ate, in Neapolitan places in Italy, horrors your feeble minds can not even begin to grasp. Most italians dread of fruit in savoury dishes but that's just dumb traditionalism.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Hi! I study CS already few months and I start hating programming - something I used to love. I thought that programming was about being creative, about inventing things, but the only things that we keep doing at school is copying and pasting other people's ideas. I don't know what is the point of copying and pasting other peoples algorithms? Especially when you program in Java which have a massive library with all those alorithms prewritten. What is the point of building a bubble-sort algorithm from scratch if you have a massive Java-libraries with all algorithms already prewritten? So what's the point of the classes and whole idea of object orientation and reusable code if the job-interviewers and the school is expecting from you to reinvent the wheel? Because they want to test your intelligence? How is this testing my intelligence if solving algorithmic problems is just about memorizing other people's solutions thanks to photographic memory and pasting them on the whiteboard from your memory then explaining to the teacher or the inteviewer what it is that you copied. And those problems are all the same - only written with different words. By memorizing all common algorithms from books you can solve all of them by finding analogy without even using your brain for a second just like those russian chess players who won tournaments by memorizing all chess openings from books. The funny thing that I always read on the internet is people writing something like "I was bored, so I created Conway's game of life". Like what? You didn't create anything. You just reimplemented someone's idea from a book or from a tutorial from a guy who also copied it from a book or a tutorial. You copied and pasted a solution that someone already came up with. Because, can you make a Conway's game of life without those famous 4 loops? You can maybe create a class or a different method but those 4 loops you have to copy and past. So what is the point of doing all this copying and past? I'm so bored. Why is programming so boring? All these stupid games and algorithms that we have to copy and past. I would love to build my own program, that I invented, with solutions that I came up with and not recreate some prehistoric code... Is this hwo this job will look like in the future? I thought I would be free to create something that is mine, that I can stand for and not be a living scanner. Maybe I should be a writer instead? As a creative person I feel tormented by my school and the thought that this is how my job will look like the rest of my
Basically you want to build starships without knowing what's a hammer. I saw many like you, they think that being creative meant there was no need of knowledge. And they are fast to copy paste from other works without *thinking*. I fixed many of their "works" because they did not know what they needed, what they were doing, what they were copying and where. If tomorrow I will enroll to run in the Olympics I will not win: I need to train from the very scratch to be able to participate, let alone compete. If you refuse to learn the basics then, by all means, change career now that it's easier. There's no fault in realizing some path is not for you. Maybe you will find yourself better in electronics? The programming is easier and there's more tinkering, which seems to suit your mindset more than the somewhat rigid world of Computer Science.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Just get through it the best you can. I have used very little of my CS degree in any of the work I have done in 16+ years as a developer. bubble sort, never had to use it or understand it in any real world solution. That's me though. Other people's stories may be different. get your CS degree so you can get your first couple of jobs, then after that, it is pure work experience. If you are still doing this after 5-7 years, you will probably do it for life. good luck.
Honestly I only ever use either quicksort or insertion sort. Though exactly once bubble sort has been the best choice due to particularities of the procedure that computed the results to be sorted AND particularities of the output I needed.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
