new years resolutions

[Laura Creighton]

> On Sat, 2003-01-04 at 11:05, Laura Creighton wrote:
> > <snip>
> > 
> > > Ah, but you are equating "computer background" with "CS background"
> > > which ignores a large segment of knowledgeable people.  There is a guy
> > > at my work who built a serial IO card using nothing but a pen plotter to
> > > etch the circuit board, a small processor (and a couple of support
> > > chips) and his own custom firmware.  I doubt many CS majors could do the
> > > same, yet they would somehow exclude his POV in favor of their own,
> > > despite the fact that their entire world ceases to exist without people
> > > like him.  Ask yourself, is computing about software, or about
> > > hardware?  Obviously both, but I can assure you that hardware without
> > > software is far more useful than the reverse <wink>.
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > Cliff Wells <clifford.wells at attbi.com>
> > 
> > I don't think that dividing 'csc == software' and 'engineering ==
> > hardware' is the best possible way to distinguish between them.  A
> 
> Well, clearly the world can be divided in any two ways an argument
> requires.  I usually divide it into "people who agree with me" and
> "people who are wrong".  It makes my position so much more defensible ;)
> As an aside, you personally usually get lumped with the latter, unless
> you happen to agree with me, in which case you're the best <wink>.

Some basic tendancy in me to generalise causes me to suspect that this
places me alongside everybody else ...


> Anyway, my rather arbitrary division (perhaps mis-equated) was useful
> for making a particular point.

Yes, but my life would have run an awful lot easier if I had understood
when accepted to both Science and Engineering schools, that the fact
that I like building things was significant.  I suppose I was expected
to figure this one out for myself, but I didn't ...

<snip>
> 
> >From my own experience, it isn't so cut-and-dried as far as type of
> personality.  I tend to dislike applied mathematics (preferring pure
> theory), but get bored by CS theory, preferring actual applications.  
> But then I spend all day on the 'net and don't get anything done anyway
> ;)

Nothing wrong with simply loving mathematics for its own sake in my
book ...  but it is tough to teach an algorithm class when you are
convinced that you are the only person in there who wouldn't rather
be _anywhere_ else.

And a friend of mine, who was asked to fill in for a professor who
was away at a conference for an algorithm course, had this interesting
experience.  When he got to class, he discovered that, due to some
sort of miscommunication, the class he had prepared had already been
taught by the absent professor.  The students were expecting to hear 
a lecture about some other algorithm which he didn't know very well
and was in no position to teach.  He said 'ooops'.

But, rallying for the occasion, he decided that if he couldn't teach
what the students wanted, and it was pointless to teach what they
already had studied, he would give them 'what he thought they should
know which isn't on any course'.  And he taught them 'how to write a
unit test', with emphasis on 'write the test first, and the code
second'.  Come term end, guess what class was rated as the best for
that course?  It is not computer science, but it is still something
worth learning ....

Laura Creighton