[Closed] Where are all the C programmers?

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!

[i]Thought[/i] 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 🙂

[url= http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/04/should-competent-programmers-be-mathematically-inclined.html ]Jeff Atwood makes some good points about programming and maths[/URL]
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 [i]could[/i] 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 🙂

Aah FizzBuzz:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmers-program.html
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/fizzbuzz-the-programmers-stairway-to-heaven.html

One of those links talks about recursion. I searched it and realised google are doing a funny...

[IMG] [/IMG]

Lol 🙂 Like it.

I'm sure loads of you have see this before but it made me laugh.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html