You haven't lived until you've experienced a quality core dump 
Comp Sci cryptography bore here who wrote embedded and real-time C code for seismic surveying, mainly crypto and compression with a bit of 3d graphical processing. I knew it was time to do something else when i wrote a cheque in hexadecimal (true story)...
[edit] and I'm still cursed with using Vi for everything, documents particularly that i then get pasted into Word 
Thanks for the points.
Don't use C++, it's the Devil's language
numNegativeOpinions++;
I'm using it at the moment and I have to say there are lots of incredibly complicated bits to it, especially when you get into heavy template programming with binding and functors - the error messages from the compiler become completely unreadable by human beings. 
I used to be a C Programmer, but somehow I now find myself as an Environmental Engineer.
Studied Geology and Computer Science with the idea of working in Geophysics, but finishing my degree in the middle of the early 90's recession put paid to that.
Last bit of C I did was converting a load of 'NATURAL' database programs. Considering the NATURAL code ran like a three legged dog and the company was charged by the second for CPU time, in the first month they went live I think I saved the company £20K. Didn't get any thanks for it though and was made redundant (for the third time in 5 years I might add).
I still try to keep my hand in, playing with Linux on an old laptop; and I sometimes miss the creative elements of the work, but these feelings soon go away when I think back to the 18 hour days trying to get a system to go live and being made redundant again because the company is sending all the development work 'off shore'.
I think the problem for the OP is that universities aren't teaching C any more.
All the young graduates I know have learn't mostly Java, C# and web related stuff. If they have learnt C, then they've tried to forget about it asap!
I've coded in C, C++ and C# over the years, but that's all off the back of learning to program for science, so my code was never likely to be particularly optimised!
These days I work full time as a scientist and write stuff mostly using Matlab, which is terribly slow to execute, but fast to code.
All the young graduates I know have learn't mostly Java, C# and web related stuff. If they have learnt C, then they've tried to forget about it asap!
Yep. Shame because an understanding of C helps you pick up higher level languages. Such graduates have no idea what a pointer, stack, or heap is. Which means they misunderstand concepts in their own language (e.g. why creating lots of objects is costly, why passing objects by value hurts performance etc).
Yep. Shame because an understanding of C helps you pick up higher level languages
Couldn't agree more. I believe you don't need 'A' Level maths now to study computing at Uni. They call it Computer Studies too, to take the science part out. I still remember my first year course in Algorithmics with Pascal. Now there was a highly typed language! Never got on with Pascal, but found C relatively straight forward.
Memories, memories
They bloody well should understand what a pointer is in Java - fundamental to the language. The rest of it should be part of any foundation course in programming, not just C.
Not sure about needing A level maths to study computing either.
IMO what's most important for a developer is to understand how your choices in the work you do are going to affect the application, the end product, the project and your team both now and in the future. I bet they don't teach that.
They bloody well should understand what a pointer is in Java - fundamental to the language.
reference != pointer
glenh - MemberI think the problem for the OP is that universities aren't teaching C any more.
molgrips - Member
IMO what's most important for a developer is to understand how your choices in the work you do are going to affect the application, the end product, the project and your team both now and in the future. I bet they don't teach that.
See above.
See above my arse.
Bloody nerds cluttering up the industry!
Not sure about needing A level maths to study computing either.
You still need to learn logic though and unfortunately one of the best ways to learn logic is with maths. The ICT course taught in secondary schools, no matter what anybody says, has more to do with design than with computing.
After being made redundant the last time, I thought I might pass on some of my computing skills by becoming a teacher. They taught them how to make a website look pretty, with the appropriate design software, but didn't teach them how to do a simple calculation in a spreadsheet. A month into my first PGCE teaching practice I quit. Nightmare!!!!!
You still need to learn logic though and unfortunately one of the best ways to learn logic is with maths
I dunno.. my A level maths didn't contain any formal logic stuff.
Yep, didn't get much logic in Higher Grade Maths (i.e. under the Scottish system).
But "Technological Studies" covered basic logic from an electronic view (logic gates) and "Computer Studies" dealt with the software view (control flow).
Didn't mean 'Logic', suppose I should have said logical thought. Mathematical problem solving, especially algebra, requires logical thought processes. First year degree covered logic gates and all that stuff.
Computers wouldn't have been invented if it wasn't for mathematicians.
Mathematical problem solving bears bugger all relation to programming problem solving IMO and E.
in it to get a job because they thought they could make lots of money
Hi!
Thought being the operative word there 
Agree with molgrips.
We did linear algebra, calculus, formal logic, complex numbers - all that good stuff at uni and none of it is useful for general programming.
Algebra and set theory are probably the closest to useful for general programmers.
I think Ada Lovelace was related to Lord Byron. Smart chick
Ada Lovelace was Byron's only legitimate child. Our IT training suite is in a building called Ada Lovelace and I used to live just round the corner from Ada Place and Lovelace Walk
Jeff Atwood makes some good points about programming and maths
But the Steve Yegge post that he links to is worth a read too.
Thought being the operative word there
Hehe.. yes.. people's parents had this idea that computers made lots of money.. maybe from the 80s I dunno
Algebra isn't useful for programming beyond the concept of variables.. which isn't very hard anyway, and they mean somewhat different things in programming anyway.
GrahamS - Member
Agree with molgrips.We did linear algebra, calculus, formal logic, complex numbers - all that good stuff at uni and none of it is useful for general programming.
All useful for my programming! Currently doing some derivative free multivaraiable curve fitting, using a bayesian model; along with some non linear matrix transforms to move between different variable spaces
Glen, that's what's called domain specific knowledge here in the IT world
As in, there's knowing how to program, and knowing what your program needs to do - they are separate.
Largely true, but if you don't know what your program could do, then you'll never be able to write the code for it 
Anyway, in my experience of working for 2 very large IT companies (who shall remain nameless in case I wish rejoin either in the future!), programming is more a case of hacking any old bollox together as quickly as possible and getting out of there before the client realises.
@glenh: I'm an engineer, I don't have time for maths
After being made redundant the last time, I thought I might pass on some of my computing skills by becoming a teacher. They taught them how to make a website look pretty, with the appropriate design software, but didn't teach them how to do a simple calculation in a spreadsheet. A month into my first PGCE teaching practice I quit. Nightmare!!!!!
Really? Your loss! I teach secondary ICT - we teach programming in year 8 using something called scratch, run fairly complex (for 11 year olds) spreadsheet models. Javascript as part of web development along with CSS and HTML in y11.
I also teach A level computing. I use python as out main language for a variety of reasons although our exam board supports Java, Pascal (unfortunately) VB and a few others. I also teach basic low level programming using emulated 8086, Big O, standard algorithms. I am half way through boolean algebra at the moment with my year 12s.
This is not even to mention that there is a trial for GCSE computing at the moment. Don't take this the wrong way but if you dropped out after 1 month based in one school you really didn't get much exposure to anything!
As in, there's knowing how to program, and knowing what your program needs to do - they are separate.
When hiring permies, if I couldn't match the skill set required, all other things being equal, I'd go with the candidate with the business specific knowledge and other languages rather than the one with the specific technical requirements. Refer to previous postings regarding offshoring for the obvious reasons.
Last role a couple of years back for a very large American Insurance Group did analysis and design in this country, coding and all testing barring acceptance in China. What a pigs ear that was.
Anyway, in my experience of working for 2 very large IT companies (who shall remain nameless in case I wish rejoin either in the future!), programming is more a case of hacking any old bollox together as quickly as possible and getting out of there before the client realises.
Ah yes. The big consultancy companies. Don't get me started. People think that they are paying for expertise with them, but they aren't.
Just to add here that I once heard from a team leader that he was sick of interviewing people who sprouted about how they knew languages x,y,z and then couldn't code a simple algorithm.
He set them a test - nice and simple. Create the game fizzbuzz using a language of their choice. If you don't know you count and multiples of 3 are fizz, multiples of 5 are buzz and multiples of both 3 and 5 are fizzbuzz so your output would go 1,2,fizz,4,buzz,fizz,7,8,fizz,buzz etc.
Apparently stacks of people couldn't do it even in the 15-20 minutes he gave them!
I set this as a programming test for my year 12s mid year.
My first job, I went for two interviews then they decided that I didn't have the skills, being a Physics graduate rather than comp sci. Then I got a call back for another interview, because they'd come up with a programming test where you were given a price for an item and you had to round it to the nearest price point ie 3.49 3.99 etc. I was apparently the only person that could do it
One of those links talks about recursion. I searched it and realised google are doing a funny...
Lol Like it.
I'm sure loads of you have see this before but it made me laugh.
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