On 20-2-2009 13:38, Invisible wrote:
> John VanSickle wrote:
>> On the other hand, if you get a doctorate in education, you can 
>> actually be as dumb as a half-moldy cup of yogurt, and you still won't 
>> get fired for anything short of a felony.
>>
>> As proof I offer the U.S. public school system.
> 
> I actually have no idea what you're talking about - although spending 3 
> years evaluating the intelligence of a half-mouldy cup of yogurt does 
> seem like an amusing prospect. ;-)

John had some problems with below average IQ and EQ people when he was 
teaching, that is why he isn't anymore.

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>> The question is: Do you think I should do a PhD?
> 
> Yes, but not in computer science. I suggest something applied. Not 
> because you like it, but because you could be good at it and it would 
> force you to meet other people.

So, what you're saying is, I'd be doing something I don't want to do, 
and being forced to get yelled at by a bunch of people? And yet you 
expect me to be "good" at this? Hmm...

>> I seem to vaguely recall somebody (I forget who) claiming to know who 
>> to go to for this kind of thing, and offering to help me arrange it. 
> 
> If you had an MSc I am pretty sure I could have arranged it. With a BSc 
> it may require a bit more work.

Heh, oh well.

> Oh, and it would require you to not live with your mother anymore.

Not living with the She Devil sounds dreamy. Having to copy with a whole 
bunch of other stuff sounds less inviting.

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> ("List all customers who have placed an order this year, sorted by 
> customer ID". I mean, seriously, are you KIDDING me??)

Hehe, I've typed about 10 lines of SQL in my whole life (and 8 of those in 
the last week) and even I know how to do that now :-)

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>> ("List all customers who have placed an order this year, sorted by 
>> customer ID". I mean, seriously, are you KIDDING me??)
> 
> Hehe, I've typed about 10 lines of SQL in my whole life (and 8 of those 
> in the last week) and even I know how to do that now :-)

EXACTLY!!

It is scaresly possible to make this any *more* simple. (I guess you'd 
have to have something with no PK/FK relationships at all - e.g., "list 
all customers born after 1980" or something.)

Seriously, this is probably the most *basic* thing you can ask SQL to 
do. Jesus... AND you've allowed to use the SQL Server CHM files.

Apparently "I've had people come in here claiming to have 20 years' 
experience with SQL who were unable to do that test as well as you just 
did". WTF?? O_O

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> Actually, I'm still not really comprehending why double-entry book keeping 
> is really relevant to a computer science degree, but still...

Exactly.

> Well, everybody seemed to think that once I had a degree, people would be 
> falling over themselves to be the first to employ me.

Maybe a few decades ago, but not anymore.

> Why is another qualification going to be different?

Becuase unlike degrees, hardly anyone has a PhD, it makes you stand out from 
the crowd (which a degree *used* to do).

>> Because you will enjoy doing it
>
> If it's true, that would be a valid reason.

Well presumably you would choose to do study a subject you enjoyed...

> I'm thinking I might make a list of cool stuff just for the hell of it, 
> actually. :-D

Yes, I want to see another thread with "List of things I enjoy" :-)

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>> Well, everybody seemed to think that once I had a degree, people would 
>> be falling over themselves to be the first to employ me.
> 
> Maybe a few decades ago, but not anymore.

I thought it was more like a few centuries?

>> Why is another qualification going to be different?
> 
> Becuase unlike degrees, hardly anyone has a PhD, it makes you stand out 
> from the crowd (which a degree *used* to do).

Hey, if *I* can actually get one, it can't be that rare.

>>> Because you will enjoy doing it
>>
>> If it's true, that would be a valid reason.
> 
> Well presumably you would choose to do study a subject you enjoyed...

Uh, well yeah, but you generally don't find out whether you enjoy 
something until after you've started doing it?

>> I'm thinking I might make a list of cool stuff just for the hell of 
>> it, actually. :-D
> 
> Yes, I want to see another thread with "List of things I enjoy" :-)

Your wish is my comonad!

Er, wait...




C... co... comonoid... coroutine... covarience...

...parley?

Ah, YES! Parley. Parley.

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> It is scaresly possible to make this any *more* simple. (I guess you'd 
> have to have something with no PK/FK relationships at all - e.g., "list 
> all customers born after 1980" or something.)
>
> Seriously, this is probably the most *basic* thing you can ask SQL to do. 
> Jesus... AND you've allowed to use the SQL Server CHM files.
>
> Apparently "I've had people come in here claiming to have 20 years' 
> experience with SQL who were unable to do that test as well as you just 
> did". WTF?? O_O

OK so as an SQL beginner let me ask if this is possible.

Say you have lots of experiments, and each experiment is made up of several 
events repeated some number of times (like over-temperature, switched-off, 
switched-on etc).

I'm thinking that I make a table for events first, like:

EventID, Description
0, Switched on
1, Switched off
2, Over-temperature warning
...

Then I make another table for experiments

ExperimentID, StartDateTime, DeviceNumberTested, Description
0,blahblah,53535,"Test 1"
1,blahblah,23112,"Test 2"
...

You get the idea.

Then I should make another table to hold all the events that occur in all 
the experiments.

ExperimentID,EventDateTime,EventID
0,blah,1
0,blah,0
0,blah,2
0,blah,1
1,blah,1
...

OK.  That all seems quite basic to me so far and seems the best way to 
organise things.

Now, is it possible to do a search using SQL that does something like this: 
Find all the times that an experiment has gone over temperature while 
switched on (ie after a switched on event but not after a switched off 
event)?  This is beyond my basic knowledge how I would do such a thing 
without writing some code to manually search the results and checking times.

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scott wrote:

> OK so as an SQL beginner let me ask if this is possible.
> 
> Say you have lots of experiments, and each experiment is made up of 
> several events repeated some number of times (like over-temperature, 
> switched-off, switched-on etc).
> 
> I'm thinking that I make a table for events first, like:
> 
> EventID, Description
> 0, Switched on
> 1, Switched off
> 2, Over-temperature warning
> ...
> 
> Then I make another table for experiments
> 
> ExperimentID, StartDateTime, DeviceNumberTested, Description
> 0,blahblah,53535,"Test 1"
> 1,blahblah,23112,"Test 2"
> ...
> 
> You get the idea.
> 
> Then I should make another table to hold all the events that occur in 
> all the experiments.
> 
> ExperimentID,EventDateTime,EventID
> 0,blah,1
> 0,blah,0
> 0,blah,2
> 0,blah,1
> 1,blah,1
> ...
> 
> OK.  That all seems quite basic to me so far and seems the best way to 
> organise things.
> 
> Now, is it possible to do a search using SQL that does something like 
> this: Find all the times that an experiment has gone over temperature 
> while switched on (ie after a switched on event but not after a switched 
> off event)?  This is beyond my basic knowledge how I would do such a 
> thing without writing some code to manually search the results and 
> checking times.

Mmm, difficult to see, the Dark Side is...

I would suggest a 3-way self-join of the event table with itself. Find 
all occurrances of event #0, event #1 and event #2 in the same 
experiment, with constraints on the time orderings therein.

If that makes sense?

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>> Then I should make another table to hold all the events that occur in 
>> all the experiments.
>>
>> ExperimentID,EventDateTime,EventID
>> 0,blah,1
>> 0,blah,0
>> 0,blah,2
>> 0,blah,1
>> 1,blah,1
>> ...
>>
>> OK.  That all seems quite basic to me so far and seems the best way to 
>> organise things.
>>
>> Now, is it possible to do a search using SQL that does something like 
>> this: Find all the times that an experiment has gone over temperature 
>> while switched on (ie after a switched on event but not after a 
>> switched off event)?  This is beyond my basic knowledge how I would do 
>> such a thing without writing some code to manually search the results 
>> and checking times.
> 
> Mmm, difficult to see, the Dark Side is...
> 
> I would suggest a 3-way self-join of the event table with itself. Find 
> all occurrances of event #0, event #1 and event #2 in the same 
> experiment, with constraints on the time orderings therein.
> 
> If that makes sense?

SELECT *
FROM EventRecord AS X, EventRecord AS Y, EventRecord AS Z
WHERE
   X.ExperimentID = Y.ExperimentID AND
   Y.ExperimentID = Z.ExperimentID AND
   X.EventID = 0 AND
   Y.EventID = 2 AND
   Z.EventID = 1 AND
   X.EventDateTime < Y.EventDateTime AND
   Y.EventDateTime < Z.EventDateTime;

Or similar. (It's been a while since I did SQL...)

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>> Maybe a few decades ago, but not anymore.
>
> I thought it was more like a few centuries?

Don't think so, ask your dad how what % of the population went to University 
when he was that age.

> Hey, if *I* can actually get one, it can't be that rare.

What % of people in Milton Keynes do you think can program in a functional 
language, know half of what you know about knot theory, and half of what you 
know about fourier transforms etc?  What % would even be capable of 
understanding?  I can tell you, not many.

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