Quick poll: Why the Indian education system sucks
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Programming is programming is programming is programming. It doesn't matter if you learn basic or pascal or lisp, as long as you know the foundations, and are willing to learn, then you can pick up any programming language, methodoligy, framework, etc. Sure, we all know that C++ rules, VB is for wimps, and C# is a bloated rip-off, but the fact remains, the concepts are the same throughout. End soap box.
"I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of."
Todd C. Wilson wrote: the concepts are the same throughout. What concepts? Bah! Also, do you think anybody would give a job to a guy fresh out of college (which means no experience) if he didn't know to print "Hello, world!" using MFC or know what .net is? X| Also, concepts really matter, but you must be good in some language to implement them.
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. "it is in your best interest to begin a serious study of classic Visual Basic. Nothing will help you in achieving your goals so well as mastering this wonderful language and it's design philosophies." - Shog9 "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
Troy Marchand wrote: I am not trying to be harsh or egotistical, its just the truth. Don't be sorry- you're just voicing your opinion , which is the truth. Troy Marchand wrote: the fact that most people "don't get it". I agree. I believe in natural selection. I mean, if a guy isn't cut out to be a programmer, he shouldn't forced to be one. There are hundreds of other professions. Troy Marchand wrote: This is especially true here in North America, where you have computer programming schools all over the place that just want peoples money, and advertise things such as ..... Does that kind of thing happen there too? I thought it was only in India. People who've never used a computer do a course in a private institute (learn VB X| in 6 months, or ASP) and get a job. They perform poorly in the job and might get kicked out, screw themselves up, screw up the company, and the good programmer is sometimes ignored for this lamer. Troy Marchand wrote: there is no funding for proper hardware as well. That reminds me-till 6 months back, we were using Win NT4 boxes at college, with 32 MB RAM. No one knows what processors they were. It took something like 1 minute to compile "Hello, world!" in 16-bit Turbo C++. X| Thanks for the comments,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. "it is in your best interest to begin a serious study of classic Visual Basic. Nothing will help you in achieving your goals so well as mastering this wonderful language and it's design philosophies." - Shog9 "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.I guess it is just a bad situation, no matter where you are from.
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You get my 1 vote. While it is perfectly true that programming is programming, regardless of the language, a large part of a school's purpose is to prepare young people to earn a living in the real world. Your schools are failing you in this regard. It is entirely appropriate to teach BASIC early in the education process; that was its original purpose, and it was never intended to be a working language, only a teaching tool for logical thought processes. It remains valuable for that purpose. Pascal is also valuable, as a language that does a superior job of implementing procedural programs. The procedural method should be taught, as there are still many applications where it is more appropriate than the event-driven model common today. But once the background is well understood, there is no excuse for ignoring the modern languages and programming models in common use in industry. BASIC is a good choice for a first class, but the rest of the pre-college learning should be done in Pascal. With that firm background in programming principles, a student will be well equipped to make the shift to OOP and event-driven programming. C++, Java, C#, and even VB would be appropriate for college, so long as they got a solid education in the languages in current use. At the very least, students should graduate knowing how to write a modern application of several thousand lines without having to spend years working under the guidance of an experienced programmer. Ideally they would also have the experience of working in groups while in school to create larger programs as a team, and though they may have one primary language (C++ would be a good choice), they should be comfortable in 3 or more. It's comforting to know that academia in others parts of the world are as clueless about reality as they are here, but your students are being seriously shortchanged. I'd find another school, or consider doing graduate work in another country.
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee..."Roger Wright wrote: You get my 1 vote. Never thought I'd thank somebody for voting me a 1. :-D Roger Wright wrote: It's comforting to know that academia in others parts of the world are as clueless about reality as they are here, Think again- no, it isn't very comforting. Would you really settle for something second-rate just because most people are like that? Think over it, Roger- you can't really expect that to give me any comfort. Roger Wright wrote: I'd find another school All colleges in the state follow the same syllabus. X| While I haven't seen the syllabi of all other states, most of them are similar, and I don't see why (or how) they can be any different. Except, of course, the IITs. They're really cool. I hope to do my PG in some IIT.
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. "it is in your best interest to begin a serious study of classic Visual Basic. Nothing will help you in achieving your goals so well as mastering this wonderful language and it's design philosophies." - Shog9 "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Like I said, I need your honest comments. Blah, Blah, Blah. Just to base my opinion on facts: SCHOOL: (1976~1985) Learned important programming concepts on my school, like: how to write, paint, sing, and the most important, how a geek should fear the strongest guy in the classroom. At my home, on my own, starting in 1982, I've learned how to code in BASIC on my ZX-81 and how limiting it was. So, I learned Z-80 ASM programming, too. Pointers are a simple concept once you learn how to do the quickest multiplication and division routine with bit shifts (Z80 ASM only had ADD and SUB instructions, not MUL and DIV). HIGH SCHOOL: (1986~1988) Learned more important programming concepts on my school, like: how to develop good soccer skills, how to write a good text, and the most important, how to make the strongest guy fear the geeks, through a neat concept called "unproportional coordinated revenge" (aka "a penis for an eye"). At my home, on my own, I've learned how to code in C and Pascal on a CP/M-like OS (MSX-DOS). COLLEGE: (1989~1992) While waiting for most friends of mine learn the difference between ++x and x++, discovered that there was a really good bunch of guys there doing research on really cool things. Even there was this new thing called C++ and OOP. None of them learned on school these things. My opinion: waiting for someone to teach you something at school is unwise, no matter where you live. Just manage to survive to school and learn for yourself. Kant wrote: Actually she replied back to me "You shouldn't fix the bug. You should kill it"
Daniel Turini wrote: My opinion: waiting for someone to teach you something at school is unwise, no matter where you live. Just manage to survive to school and learn for yourself. Ditto. I'm worried about the students en masse. Another 5 years like this and the country is going to be X| Daniel Turini wrote: a penis for an eye :~ X| :eek: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Nice concept.
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. "it is in your best interest to begin a serious study of classic Visual Basic. Nothing will help you in achieving your goals so well as mastering this wonderful language and it's design philosophies." - Shog9 "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
Vikram Punathambekar wrote: I still feel surprised when I see 15-year olds (even 19-year olds) in the West doing C++, C# and ASP .net . You see, 20-year olds here can't write a 100-line program in C. Firstly, proper educated computer programmers from India/Pakistan are comparable to any outstanding prorammer in the world, but i am not denying your comments also. Actually there are many other reasons for whatever shortcomings you described above: First problem is social security. In society like India /Pakistan, a male child (son) of a family is a person who is brought up by the parents with an expectation that he will "earn" in the future. It is true that a person select his field according to his personal interest, but the other interest in the mind of a young student is that he has to complete his education as early as possible so that he can fulfil "dreams" of his parents. In many countries of the west, Social Security is not a big problem, infact various governments allocate allowances to those people who are "unemployed". But in South Asia there is no such social security. A person has to deviate his attention towards other problems like if i remain unemployed and my father is ill then how can i overcome hospital expenditures. In developed countries programmers do not have such an extent of tension related to unemployment. So there is more innovation in the work of the programmers of western countries. In South Asia majority of talented programmers work not for innovation but for earning money so that they can cope with the social problems. So a 15 year old guy remains in a confusion because he wants to adopt a profession in which he can earn money instantly and not the one in which his personal interest is. Second reason is the family system. The family system in South Asia is entirely different from that of West. In west there are "old homes" for old people. Such "old homes" are not regarded too good in South Asia. It is the responsibility of children that they themselves take care of their parents once they become old or ill. (To me this is not a problem, family system is hallmark of South Asia) Third reason is also related to families. In family system of South Asia arguments are common b/w family members specially b/w women. Quarelling b/w mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is something normal. And such noises also have an impact on a young boy living in the family. Similarly there are many such social reasons acting as a "hurdle" in the education system
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Vikram Punathambekar wrote: I still feel surprised when I see 15-year olds (even 19-year olds) in the West doing C++, C# and ASP .net . You see, 20-year olds here can't write a 100-line program in C. Firstly, proper educated computer programmers from India/Pakistan are comparable to any outstanding prorammer in the world, but i am not denying your comments also. Actually there are many other reasons for whatever shortcomings you described above: First problem is social security. In society like India /Pakistan, a male child (son) of a family is a person who is brought up by the parents with an expectation that he will "earn" in the future. It is true that a person select his field according to his personal interest, but the other interest in the mind of a young student is that he has to complete his education as early as possible so that he can fulfil "dreams" of his parents. In many countries of the west, Social Security is not a big problem, infact various governments allocate allowances to those people who are "unemployed". But in South Asia there is no such social security. A person has to deviate his attention towards other problems like if i remain unemployed and my father is ill then how can i overcome hospital expenditures. In developed countries programmers do not have such an extent of tension related to unemployment. So there is more innovation in the work of the programmers of western countries. In South Asia majority of talented programmers work not for innovation but for earning money so that they can cope with the social problems. So a 15 year old guy remains in a confusion because he wants to adopt a profession in which he can earn money instantly and not the one in which his personal interest is. Second reason is the family system. The family system in South Asia is entirely different from that of West. In west there are "old homes" for old people. Such "old homes" are not regarded too good in South Asia. It is the responsibility of children that they themselves take care of their parents once they become old or ill. (To me this is not a problem, family system is hallmark of South Asia) Third reason is also related to families. In family system of South Asia arguments are common b/w family members specially b/w women. Quarelling b/w mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is something normal. And such noises also have an impact on a young boy living in the family. Similarly there are many such social reasons acting as a "hurdle" in the education system
First, slightly OT: Are you from Pak? I thought you are from the UAE. :confused: OK, back on track: John-theKing wrote: Firstly, proper educated computer programmers from India/Pakistan are comparable to any outstanding prorammer in the world Undoubtedly. In most cases, they are better. Reason: The few programmers who make it from India/Pak are totally self-taught. That's it. No other reason- it's as simple as that. Well, maybe, they have a burning desire to succeed as well, disgusted / disillusioned by the environment. John-theKing wrote: In society like India /Pakistan, a male child (son) of a family is a person who is brought up by the parents with an expectation that he will "earn" in the future. Why only males? At least, in India, women are being liberated too. They have their responsibilities to take care of- in the corporate world. John-theKing wrote: A person has to deviate his attention towards other problems like if i remain unemployed and my father is ill then how can i overcome hospital expenditures. Well said. Most westerners wouldn't see that point. John-theKing wrote: In South Asia majority of talented programmers work not for innovation but for earning money so that they can cope with the social problems. Right again. John-theKing wrote: The family system in South Asia is entirely different from that of West. Yes, and I must say I like this better- a society based on the family as the basic unit is better than a society based on the induvidual as the basic unit. John-theKing wrote: In family system of South Asia arguments are common b/w family members specially b/w women. Correct, but I believe arguments are more common (and have more devastating consequences) in the West. Hey, wait a minute...what does all this have to do with the fact that my (or the Indian) syllabus sucks? And I'm curious to know what you voted. :-D Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
First, slightly OT: Are you from Pak? I thought you are from the UAE. :confused: OK, back on track: John-theKing wrote: Firstly, proper educated computer programmers from India/Pakistan are comparable to any outstanding prorammer in the world Undoubtedly. In most cases, they are better. Reason: The few programmers who make it from India/Pak are totally self-taught. That's it. No other reason- it's as simple as that. Well, maybe, they have a burning desire to succeed as well, disgusted / disillusioned by the environment. John-theKing wrote: In society like India /Pakistan, a male child (son) of a family is a person who is brought up by the parents with an expectation that he will "earn" in the future. Why only males? At least, in India, women are being liberated too. They have their responsibilities to take care of- in the corporate world. John-theKing wrote: A person has to deviate his attention towards other problems like if i remain unemployed and my father is ill then how can i overcome hospital expenditures. Well said. Most westerners wouldn't see that point. John-theKing wrote: In South Asia majority of talented programmers work not for innovation but for earning money so that they can cope with the social problems. Right again. John-theKing wrote: The family system in South Asia is entirely different from that of West. Yes, and I must say I like this better- a society based on the family as the basic unit is better than a society based on the induvidual as the basic unit. John-theKing wrote: In family system of South Asia arguments are common b/w family members specially b/w women. Correct, but I believe arguments are more common (and have more devastating consequences) in the West. Hey, wait a minute...what does all this have to do with the fact that my (or the Indian) syllabus sucks? And I'm curious to know what you voted. :-D Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.Vikram Punathambekar wrote: First, slightly OT: Are you from Pak? I thought you are from the UAE. Both, job in UAE. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Why only males? At least, in India, women are being liberated too. They have their responsibilities to take care of- in the corporate world. We are talking about computer programmers and this field is something dominated by male gender all around the world. And ofcourse women in subcontinent are engaged everywhere but in family system a "son" is still regarded as responsible. Still i don't want to start Indo Pak debate here. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Hey, wait a minute...what does all this have to do with the fact that my (or the Indian) syllabus sucks? And I'm curious to know what you voted. Rate it 3. System is not too bad IMO, those people are also bad who are responsible of running the system. Eg. take example of Yashavant Kanetkar, a popular name in Sub-Continent. I also learnt a lot from his books. But his books are complete copy of books by foreign writers. I learnt VC++ from his book, "Visual C++ programming" and I was very happy. But when i came to Dubai, i obtained the Visual C++ book of Jeff Prosise. I was surprised to see that Yashavant copied "word-to-word" from his book, yes i repeat "word-to-word" copy. Its ok if you take idea and write in your own words but he simply "copied" everything. Now not many people in sub-continent knows what are they reading is copied from somewhere else. Similarly you mentioned those mushroom institutes teaching ASP.NET or VB in few months. Those institutes may also be ran by talented people but they are just wasting their energies and talent on something which is giving them money but producing illiterate programmers.
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
I started programming when I was 8, basic I was doing strings the first day...nothing advanced about it. Oh well, thats what happens when you put your trust in a government school system. Get this I didn't touch a computer untill I was 8 (I learned Basic on a crappy "precomputer" aka Learning toy crap) which was my brothers and was a 386. I've been programming with VC++ for 4/5 years now. (btw. I'm 17 now.) -Steven "the yellow dart" Hicks
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
You got my 1. While concepts are the most important part, students should also be learning programming languages that are popular. The only thing I don't agree with you on is the COBOL thing. My uni still teaches this language too and I think that they should. There are still lots of jobs out there for COBOL maintenance programmers. But overall, I agree with you that the college syllabus at your uni needs updating. Brad Jennings "You're mom is nice. Mind if I go out with her?" - Jörgen Sigvardsson
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
Is education the pursuit of knowledge OR is it about equipping you with tools for the real world? As far as the college education is concerned, I would rather see them teach fundamental theory, and let the students figure out what practical tools they need. I am very happy that my telecommunications class taught be the fundamentals of communication protocols, how to build rubust ones, and about channel capacity, and efficient communication mechanisms, rather than teach me IPX protocol because it was the most used at the time. If you are a CS major, and expect that you need lessons in programming languages, I am sorry about that. I would expect you to learn set theory, compiler design, memory management theory etc. If you understand all that, what is the significant difference between writing a program in Pascal, C++, Java etc? You should understand the status of current concepts and advanced theories in operating system design - not how to use Windows 2000 or Linux, because in a few years they will be outdated. The only fundamental thing that school provides you, IMO, is equipping you to seek out the information you want, understand it, and use it for the task at hand. My education has certainly helped me do that. I understood how computers work, because of my microprocessor class that taught me 8051 microcontrollers, when PCs used 80386 and above. But, it did not stop me from designing hardware systems with a variety of microprocessors and Digital Signal Processors. It did not stop me from making add-on sound card to the PC as a college project in 1992. Infact they helped me take a small initial step in understanding how things worked, before I looked at the other complex products around, read their manuals and figured out how to use them. There will always be students who are contented with getting grades, and not worry about solving real problems. But, that is an aptitude. Also, You cannot expect your teachers to be supreme geniuses who know everything. If that were the case, they would not be teaching, and even if they did, they would be at an IIT or an MIT. To me, the major problem is that the education system does not challenge the students enough. It should promote independant thought process, and IMO, most school systems are failing in that regard. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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Is education the pursuit of knowledge OR is it about equipping you with tools for the real world? As far as the college education is concerned, I would rather see them teach fundamental theory, and let the students figure out what practical tools they need. I am very happy that my telecommunications class taught be the fundamentals of communication protocols, how to build rubust ones, and about channel capacity, and efficient communication mechanisms, rather than teach me IPX protocol because it was the most used at the time. If you are a CS major, and expect that you need lessons in programming languages, I am sorry about that. I would expect you to learn set theory, compiler design, memory management theory etc. If you understand all that, what is the significant difference between writing a program in Pascal, C++, Java etc? You should understand the status of current concepts and advanced theories in operating system design - not how to use Windows 2000 or Linux, because in a few years they will be outdated. The only fundamental thing that school provides you, IMO, is equipping you to seek out the information you want, understand it, and use it for the task at hand. My education has certainly helped me do that. I understood how computers work, because of my microprocessor class that taught me 8051 microcontrollers, when PCs used 80386 and above. But, it did not stop me from designing hardware systems with a variety of microprocessors and Digital Signal Processors. It did not stop me from making add-on sound card to the PC as a college project in 1992. Infact they helped me take a small initial step in understanding how things worked, before I looked at the other complex products around, read their manuals and figured out how to use them. There will always be students who are contented with getting grades, and not worry about solving real problems. But, that is an aptitude. Also, You cannot expect your teachers to be supreme geniuses who know everything. If that were the case, they would not be teaching, and even if they did, they would be at an IIT or an MIT. To me, the major problem is that the education system does not challenge the students enough. It should promote independant thought process, and IMO, most school systems are failing in that regard. Thomas My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
Thomas George wrote: If you are a CS major, and expect that you need lessons in programming languages, I am sorry about that. Wrong- what good is it if you know all the concepts very well but don't know any programming lang? Do you think anybody will give a job to a fellow fresh out of college who can neither write a 200-line program in C++ nor print "Hello, world!" in Java/MFC/whatever? Concepts are important- that is unquestionable, but so are programming languages. Thomas George wrote: Also, You cannot expect your teachers to be supreme geniuses who know everything. I don't. I simplly expect them to know (and teach, of course) the basics. It's a case of "One who can, does; one who cannot, teaches" syndrome. Thomas George wrote: To me, the major problem is that the education system does not challenge the students enough. Exactly. Err... isn't that what I was saying? I didn't use the same words, though. Just of curiosity, where did you grad from?
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
Vikram Punathambekar wrote: First, slightly OT: Are you from Pak? I thought you are from the UAE. Both, job in UAE. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Why only males? At least, in India, women are being liberated too. They have their responsibilities to take care of- in the corporate world. We are talking about computer programmers and this field is something dominated by male gender all around the world. And ofcourse women in subcontinent are engaged everywhere but in family system a "son" is still regarded as responsible. Still i don't want to start Indo Pak debate here. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Hey, wait a minute...what does all this have to do with the fact that my (or the Indian) syllabus sucks? And I'm curious to know what you voted. Rate it 3. System is not too bad IMO, those people are also bad who are responsible of running the system. Eg. take example of Yashavant Kanetkar, a popular name in Sub-Continent. I also learnt a lot from his books. But his books are complete copy of books by foreign writers. I learnt VC++ from his book, "Visual C++ programming" and I was very happy. But when i came to Dubai, i obtained the Visual C++ book of Jeff Prosise. I was surprised to see that Yashavant copied "word-to-word" from his book, yes i repeat "word-to-word" copy. Its ok if you take idea and write in your own words but he simply "copied" everything. Now not many people in sub-continent knows what are they reading is copied from somewhere else. Similarly you mentioned those mushroom institutes teaching ASP.NET or VB in few months. Those institutes may also be ran by talented people but they are just wasting their energies and talent on something which is giving them money but producing illiterate programmers.
John-theKing wrote: Still i don't want to start Indo Pak debate here. I wasn't trying to pull one over you-honest. It's just that women in India seem to better off than women in Pak from waht I read everywhere and from your post. And yes, even in the IT dept, women are beginning to (pardon the pun, simply couldn't resist it-no offense meant) infiltrate. John-theKing wrote: take example of Yashavant Kanetkar, a popular name in Sub-Continent. He's well-known in Pak? :wtf: Surprising. Popular- among the masses, but hated in elite circles. Don't be too polite in criticizing YPK- I hate him, prolly more than you do. His books are X| X| X| . The only one which passes in my book is "Let Us C", which was my first C book :~ . John-theKing wrote: Yashavant copied "word-to-word" from his book, yes i repeat "word-to-word" copy. Yeah, I've heard quite some rumors about this too. John-theKing wrote: Similarly you mentioned those mushroom institutes teaching ASP.NET or VB in few months. Those institutes may also be ran by talented people but they are just wasting their energies [voice of experience] They aren't. [/voice of experience] Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
You got my 1. While concepts are the most important part, students should also be learning programming languages that are popular. The only thing I don't agree with you on is the COBOL thing. My uni still teaches this language too and I think that they should. There are still lots of jobs out there for COBOL maintenance programmers. But overall, I agree with you that the college syllabus at your uni needs updating. Brad Jennings "You're mom is nice. Mind if I go out with her?" - Jörgen Sigvardsson
Brad Jennings wrote: The only thing I don't agree with you on is the COBOL thing. My uni still teaches this language too and I think that they should.
HERESY !
Thanks for the 1. :~
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
I started programming when I was 8, basic I was doing strings the first day...nothing advanced about it. Oh well, thats what happens when you put your trust in a government school system. Get this I didn't touch a computer untill I was 8 (I learned Basic on a crappy "precomputer" aka Learning toy crap) which was my brothers and was a 386. I've been programming with VC++ for 4/5 years now. (btw. I'm 17 now.) -Steven "the yellow dart" Hicks
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(Steven Hicks)n+1 wrote: Get this I didn't touch a computer untill I was 8 Lucky bug**r! :insert jealous emoticon here: I got my first computer when I was 17 (less than 2 years back). As for touching computers, I must have been 14, at the least - prolly older.
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
John-theKing wrote: Still i don't want to start Indo Pak debate here. I wasn't trying to pull one over you-honest. It's just that women in India seem to better off than women in Pak from waht I read everywhere and from your post. And yes, even in the IT dept, women are beginning to (pardon the pun, simply couldn't resist it-no offense meant) infiltrate. John-theKing wrote: take example of Yashavant Kanetkar, a popular name in Sub-Continent. He's well-known in Pak? :wtf: Surprising. Popular- among the masses, but hated in elite circles. Don't be too polite in criticizing YPK- I hate him, prolly more than you do. His books are X| X| X| . The only one which passes in my book is "Let Us C", which was my first C book :~ . John-theKing wrote: Yashavant copied "word-to-word" from his book, yes i repeat "word-to-word" copy. Yeah, I've heard quite some rumors about this too. John-theKing wrote: Similarly you mentioned those mushroom institutes teaching ASP.NET or VB in few months. Those institutes may also be ran by talented people but they are just wasting their energies [voice of experience] They aren't. [/voice of experience] Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.Vikram Punathambekar wrote: It's just that women in India seem to better off than women in Pak from what I read everywhere and from your post. Well comparison b/w Indian woman and Pakistan woman can be entirely different and interesting debate. You said that as you "read everywhere" an India woman is better than Pakistan woman. Now let me tell you that in Pakistan army there is a SSG (Special Service group) commando group in which there is a division of special trained women commandos. There is currently no women SSG commando in India. Though for the first time India is also bringing women in SSGs. I can give you the report from "Times of India" in the evening when i reach home. Also in medical colleges of Pakistan there is 70% women representation of female students ( i'd expect same trend in India). You pointed out my words about women in my previous post. No i didn't mean what you taken the meaning. I mean that in South Asian society average fathers bring dolls for their daughters and Aeroplane for their sons. Take example of India where so many "young male citizens" daily going abroad for jobs. Women are also doing jobs abroad but their representation is low. Of course women can work much harder than a man but in South Asia primarily the head of a family is a man who is regarded responsible. I didn't mean anything else. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: He's well-known in Pak? Why not many Indian books/writers are popular. Indian publisher BPB is the distributor of Indian books in the region and this publisher is earning a lot from Pakistan Ahem! Indian books are available in local currency rates like 200 Rs or 300 Rs. The books of Microsoft Press are about 50$, which is too much in local currency. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: The only one which passes in my book is "Let Us C", which was my first C book There are other books like: "VC++ COM and beyond", "C FAQ" which are rare books indeed.
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
You think you have it tough?? The only languages I learned in College were basic C, C++. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable And no, they did't teach all that stuff to me too. So what? Learn it yourself!I believe that's what separates the ones who are serious about it and those who are just going with the trend. Anyway, learning all of yourself gives you so much more satisfaction. Not too mention your assignments are automatic 'A's given the fact that you know more;) Nick Seng (the programmer formerly known as Notorious SMC)
God, I pity me! - Phoncible P. Bone
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
It sounds like you're bored :) Go get an engineering or advanced physics degree and learn programming on your own. That's what I did. The programming courses in my school where way ahead of what you're describing but they still sucked. 2-3 months of self learning on c++ will get you far beyond what you'll learn in a class. It's easy. It's fun. Get on with it! Todd Smith
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After reading this, vote this thread a 1 if you agree with me that the Indian education system sucks, 5 if you think it's cool. Please leave behind your valuable comments as to how this situation can be corrected. Before you 50-ish old-timers say "When I studied it was worse", remember- I'm less than 20 and still in college. Wherever I say "I learnt", it means "they taught only", because we students don't have ANY choice here. Now, enough ramblinbg. SCHOOL Till my 10th standard, the only "language" I learnt was BASIC. Largest program? 20 lines, maybe. The only statements I learnt - REM, INPUT, PRINT, IF-THEN-ELSE, FOR, GOTO, and maybe a coupla others. 11th and 12th standard: "Advanced" BASIC, such as string functions and other crap. For my 12th standard, I studied WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE alongwith BASIC. COLLEGE 1st year (annual pattern) 2000-2001: One C programming pracs paper. Largest program: 20 lines, prolly. 2nd year, 3rd sem (2001): Had a paper called "COBOL and advanced programming in C". COBOL? X| Advanced C? Oh yeah, we studied functions, arrays, structures and pointers for the first time. How advanced is that for you? 2nd year, 4th sem (2001-2002): Paper called "OOPS and C++". Hmmm... a C++ paper with no mention of templates, namespaces, new-style headers, new type casts, and other stuff like mutable. In short, pre-standardization C++. 3rd year, 5th sem (2002): Sometime around 1999, the University had decided that their syllabus was outdated since they were teaching Pascal, Fortran, etc. So they weeded out that crap (they missed COBOL, though- Y2K perhaps? ) and brought in this wonderful thing called Windows programming. At last, they were waking up...or were they? In 1999, they introduced for the first time, Win16 programming X| :shudder: . So, late in 2002, I was studying Win16 programming. [sarcasm] :cool: [/sarcasm] My classmates don't know that what they studied was Win16 (HECK, they wouldn't know what Win32 is, anyway) - ask them what sizeof(WPARAM) is, and they'll say 2 (if they remember; and that's a big if :snort: ) . No Win32 programming paper yet :( . 3rd year, 6th sem (2002-2003): No programming paper per se, but I had a paper called "client-server computing" in which the last 2 units out of 5 were on MFC - theory X| . So, I learnt all the sh_t about what happens when an MFC program is run, what functions are called, etc. All that is fine- provided that is NOT the core of the paper. :sigh: It was. Now we have 66 students in my class s
I'm currently studying robotics and mechatronics engineering in Australia, and as a student I couldn't agree with you more, but I think the problem is far wider spread than you've said. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: Now we have 66 students in my class starting their final year, of which 65 can't print "Hello, world!" in MFC The same thing happens at our university - and from what I've heard it's becoming a more wide spread occurance. Most of the students in our course wouldn't know the difference between a capacitor and a resistor or C and java. It's unbelievably frustrating that so many concepts are skipped. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: I still feel surprised when I see 15-year olds (even 19-year olds) in the West doing C++, C# and ASP .net . You see, 20-year olds here can't write a 100-line program in C. I understand what you mean but I feel that maths is far more important to understand. I'd call myself a reasonably strong coder, but I haven't done any maths for almost three years, and then one lecturer pulls out MATLAB and expects us to be able to understand his image processing code. I can teach myself most of the programming stuff, most of the software engineering stuff but if mathematics aren't taught from a far more foundational level (primary school) to a much higher level (university level) I believe all engineering and CS is going to suffer in the long term.
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Thomas George wrote: If you are a CS major, and expect that you need lessons in programming languages, I am sorry about that. Wrong- what good is it if you know all the concepts very well but don't know any programming lang? Do you think anybody will give a job to a fellow fresh out of college who can neither write a 200-line program in C++ nor print "Hello, world!" in Java/MFC/whatever? Concepts are important- that is unquestionable, but so are programming languages. Thomas George wrote: Also, You cannot expect your teachers to be supreme geniuses who know everything. I don't. I simplly expect them to know (and teach, of course) the basics. It's a case of "One who can, does; one who cannot, teaches" syndrome. Thomas George wrote: To me, the major problem is that the education system does not challenge the students enough. Exactly. Err... isn't that what I was saying? I didn't use the same words, though. Just of curiosity, where did you grad from?
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.I have experience first hand that many students make an opinion on what they want, and why they will want it. I understand that most companies want people who can code. My question: Why can't the students code? Will it be solved if a C++ language class is introduced? I doubt it. In any case, I am neutral to which language is taught in a Computer Science course. Leaving complex languages out of the curriculum makes room for conceptual teaching. It also allows room to the student to choose a language of his liking to learn. Say, student A learns Java, student B learns C#, student C learns C++. The only objective achieved by adding the language to the curriculum is grading the knowledge of the semantics of the language. I would rather see computer science graduates being able to think about problems and solutions in a language independent manner. IMO, Languages and tools are important. The college should give students access to these like they have a library. But, if the curriculum includes just Pascal, I am ok with it. It is a good enough language to make someone understand how to write a program. ...and I don't think it is a waste of time. There is a saying "You can get only as good as your teacher". In higher education courses, I just expect some initiative from the student to seek out knowledge. Most of my fellow students restricted themselves to the books recommended in the course syllabus. It is not a good practice. When someone is learning computers, he has to increase the number of "teachers" he/she has by reading different sources. One thing that I realized very early on in college is that the teacher is there for "guiding" you, and you have to "teach" yourself. I like a very flexible framework, where students are not bound to too many things, but rather is graded on knowledge of fundamentals. The student should have the initiative to understand the industry he is training to get into, and learn the tools that he chooses. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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It sounds like you're bored :) Go get an engineering or advanced physics degree and learn programming on your own. That's what I did. The programming courses in my school where way ahead of what you're describing but they still sucked. 2-3 months of self learning on c++ will get you far beyond what you'll learn in a class. It's easy. It's fun. Get on with it! Todd Smith
The problem is that most of these courses are not programming courses, rather computer science courses. Students wrongly expect to get taught on commercial tools, but the stated objective of the course itself may be different - to get the students know the computer science theory. My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers