On 19/08/2011 01:00 PM, Invisible wrote:

> (Come to think of it, *all* of the networking stuff at college was done
> by Novel Netware. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...)

By coincidence, I lent one of our laptops to an employee yesterday. She 
set it up with her ISP's install disk, and now the laptop appears to 
have "Services for NetWare" installed. o_O

I'm still trying to figure out whether that's because they wanted to be 
compatible with anyone still using NetWare, or whether the ISP is 
actually powered by NetWare...

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On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:00:24 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> I have nobody to impress anymore. :'{
> 
> (Although... I wonder how much of the praise I received was actually
> justified. Especially at college, when I was in a class full of chavs
> who went out and got drunk *every day*. They'd be hung over for the
> morning classes, and mildly drunk for the afternoon ones. Is it any
> wonder the lecturers though I was brilliant?)


Believe it or not ...

  """
  Well, I was once a prolific poster on this group, but that was
  about six years ago. Not sure what, if anything, you'd remember
  about me, but I can assure you that "believe it or not" is
  warranted.
  """

... I heard a lot of the same crap as you from my teachers, even though I 
never went to "Uni". And often from teachers, like yours, who did not 
understand the subjects they were teaching.

No, I didn't spend my time scribbling formulae into notebooks[1], but I 
was well known since grade school for my own set of tricks.

What I wonder is how destructive this praise from (molding by) 
unqualified teachers ends up being to their students.

I imagine you were encouraged to "work with computers" and that this has 
worked out decently for you, but it may be overall not an optimal fit.

I know enough programmers to know that "working with computers" means a 
lot more than figuring out clever bits of code. It's an environment and a 
lifestyle to which many clever people may not be well suited. Would Frank 
have known this?

I know from my own experience that there are many affable people I would 
not recommend become salesmen, many strong people I would not recommend 
become carpenters, many hard-working people I would not recommend become 
entrepreneurs, and many fit people I would not recommend become 
roughnecks.

And I know that I wouldn't hire you as a programmer. I would prefer 
someone, perhaps less encyclopedic, with a better work ethic; someone who 
does what he's told by the person paying him to do it and who spends less 
time on this forum; someone who's more interested in keeping the wheels 
turning than it reinventing the wheel.

I might hire you as a tech writer.

At least "working with computers" is good practical advice. (My brother 
just got his Doctorate in EE and will make a lot more money than most 
people―though I'll bet he still ends up working for someone dumber than 
himself.) How about those poor kids who are pushed into liberal arts?

 -Shay

[1] I do that now. But I'm sure I'm not reinventing the wheel, because 
what I'm trying to figure out are the subtleties of a personal "sacred 
geometry" for my pictures: NOT draw_picture() algorithms, just subtleties 
of form that I find satisfying. You really /should/ try POV-Ray.

ps. One example of some ludicrous praise I recently received: After 
hearing that I had ridden my bicycle 150 miles on the previous day, my 
wife's friend commented that I should "try" the MS-150 (A 150 miles in 
TWO days bike ride). TRY?!! TRY to ride 150 miles in two days when I'd 
just ridden it in one?!

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On 26/08/2011 04:17 PM, Shay wrote:

> ... I heard a lot of the same crap as you from my teachers, even though I
> never went to "Uni". And often from teachers, like yours, who did not
> understand the subjects they were teaching.

The Real WTF is: What the *hell* is somebody who doesn't know about the 
subject doing teaching it to people?! In what universe is that a 
remotely good idea?

> What I wonder is how destructive this praise from (molding by)
> unqualified teachers ends up being to their students.

This is the operative question, yes.

> I know enough programmers to know that "working with computers" means a
> lot more than figuring out clever bits of code. It's an environment and a
> lifestyle to which many clever people may not be well suited. Would Frank
> have known this?

Would Frank have cared? I highly doubt it.

> And I know that I wouldn't hire you as a programmer. I would prefer
> someone, perhaps less encyclopedic, with a better work ethic; someone who
> does what he's told by the person paying him to do it and who spends less
> time on this forum; someone who's more interested in keeping the wheels
> turning than it reinventing the wheel.
>
> I might hire you as a tech writer.

Somebody *did* hire me as a tech writer. And liked my work. (And had no 
problem with my "work ethic" - then again, it wasn't a big project...)

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On 27/08/2011 1:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> Somebody *did* hire me as a tech writer. And liked my work. (And had no
> problem with my "work ethic" - then again, it wasn't a big project...)

Could be bigger if you are interested.

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On 19/08/2011 01:00 PM, Invisible wrote:

> ...and now I'm feeling all nostalgic about the long-lost days when I
> could just sit in a corner reading about Gaussian elimination or
> something while the lecturer blathers on about the role of middle
> management or whatever. I could do crazy math stuff, and people would be
> *impressed* and stuff. My college notes are literally a fermenting sea
> of equations. Serious work mixed up with doodles and advanced math. I
> have nobody to impress anymore. :'{

http://www.xkcd.com/664/

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://www.xkcd.com/664/

  I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
because they were made within the programming industry rather than
the academia.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 27/08/2011 06:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
>
>    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> the academia.

After reading TFWTF, I'm tempted to say "not many". But then again, who 
really knows?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 27/08/2011 06:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
> >> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
> >
> >    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> > because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> > the academia.

> After reading TFWTF, I'm tempted to say "not many". But then again, who 
> really knows?

  The industry does often make quite advanced discoveries and development,
even if it ends up being properietary and burdened by approximately half a
million patents. I'm just wondering how many of such discoveries never
become public knowledge for example because the company decides to discard
the feature from their software (but still keeps a tight hold to the rights,
of course) or the solution just goes unnoticed (and the programmer is not
allowed to divulge it).

  Of course the academia and the industry often tend to solve different
types of problems. The industry tries to solve mostly practical problems,
while the academia often tries to solve mostly theoretical problems (most
of which may or may not have a practical application). For example, where
the academia tries to solve problems like "what is the fastest algorithm
to determine if two connected graphs are strongly bisimilar", the industry
tries to solve problems like "what's the fastest way of making millions of
database accesses" or "how do we make these graphics look realistic in
real time.

  Both goals sometimes overlap (especially nowadays with all this fad with
multithreaded programming, which has strong theoretical foundations), and
at both venues there are sometimes excursions to the other side (with the
industry solving theoretical problems and the academia practical ones), but
it's probably not the norm.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:23:43 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
> 
>   I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than the
> academia.

Indeed, and of course there are some concepts that nobody can use because 
they're made in the industry and patented by companies with armies of 
lawyers rather than in academia.  I wonder how different the software 
landscape would be today if some of the utterly stupid patents there are 
outstanding lawsuits about weren't covered by a patent.

Jim

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On 8/27/2011 10:23, Warp wrote:
>    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> the academia.

Given the impact of academic inventions on practical programming, I wonder 
as well. (Consider, for example, relational databases, P/V semaphores and 
deadlock prevention techniques, parsing/language theory, etc.)  I'm thinking 
that the really big academic discoveries do indeed tend to have a stunning 
impact on practical business, in the form of stuff like RDBMS and parser 
generators and public key encryption and etc.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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