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Admin
I believe it totally. I assume Purdue CS used to be a much better program than it is now, because it seems to have a good reputation.
I spent a little less than 2 years in Purdue CS. The first thing they do is make sure you can do basic things in Java. That's the first semester. The second thing they do is make sure you can do really basic things in C and C++. That takes a semester. The third/fourth (interchangeable) thing they do is make sure you know about n-way caches and the difference between CISC and RISC. That's a semester.
The fourth/third thing is a data structures class. By the 8th or 9th week, we were done with ordinary binary trees and getting into hashes. I dropped out at that point, because of personal problems. But, I understand that nearly 2 years into Computer Science, the students and faculty were charging ahead into balanced binary trees and so forth.
Also, the main lecturer in the first class made sure to mention that OOP has been the main idea in programming since the '70s, and other approaches are not beneficial. I really missed all of the clues about that place until too late.
That isn't to say that people who go or went to school there for CS couldn't be smart or knowledgeable, but I would not count on it.
Admin
I'm in a CS program right now. Almost through with it, to the point of making basic 3D graphics with OGL, and they've barely gone over hex. We were told that you should just use the windows calculate to calculate it.
Admin
Sure. What I want to say is, if you are in a discussion and that person's idea of an unassailable argument is "I went to [insert college, college name, other here]" you can be pretty safe in assuming person is an idiot, regardless of where the went to college.
Admin
<FONT face=Verdana size=2>I take great personal offense to that (:</FONT>
Admin
<FONT face=Verdana size=2>I take great personal offense to that I mean.</FONT>
Admin
I can see why you would call him a "nut", or even a "hex nut", but what sort of euphamism is "bolt"?
Admin
Whoops, forgot the stupid 'quote' button on my lame-ass joke.
Admin
You know, I so want to call bullshit on this story, but I really can't. I spent a few minutes mentally reviewing the contents of my classes when getting my CS degree, and I can't honestly say that I remember hexadecimal being covered.
Now, binary math was covered extensively, since part of getting a CS degree was taking a few of the most basic EE circuits classes and such. And in there I'm sure we used hex at some point, but I don't recall it ever being explained to anybody. But then again nobody asked, it seemed taken for granted that we knew about it.
It is not hard to believe that a programmer would not grok hex. I can cope with that. But somebody with both an Engineering and a CS degree? I'd say the guy is lying about what degrees he has.
Oh, and Purdue doesn't have a great reputation in all circles. At my school we considered it to be mostly a joke, for any degree.
Admin
Is that Expert and in the conjunction of 'Ex' as in has been and 'Spurt' as in drip under pressure?
Admin
Um... I'm still waiting for the part where he says, "Haha. Just kidding". Until then... that makes my head hurt.
Admin
The old programmer should know that the proper way to express that data stream is:
216, 100, 66, 174, 104, 249, 76, 112, 179, 16, 54, 188, 240, 144, 66, 66
88, 137, 164, 41, 249, 122, 73, 99, 144, 106, 82, 194, 124, 82, 60, 35
169, 112, 51, 39, 44, 62, 67, 91, 172, 70, 87, 181, 120, 20, 71, 194
22, 123, 188, 238, 208, 42, 70, 195, 159, 251, 101, 187, 226, 210, 129, 91
219, 240, 70, 40, 73, 130, 65, 240, 163, 41, 117, 204, 87, 179, 134, 29
190, 179, 125, 196, 176, 84, 77, 57, 158, 117, 163, 236, 130, 125, 120, 107
4, 105, 137, 247, 102, 205, 69, 225, 179, 98, 180, 220, 215, 38, 34, 49
2, 78, 42, 226, 13, 113, 73, 30, 160, 48, 207, 41, 32, 141, 82, 50
32, 108, 105, 173, 40, 44, 78, 29, 137, 102, 227, 81, 106, 66, 146, 185
153, 155, 216, 167, 59, 145, 73, 215, 149, 51, 233, 193, 111, 135, 102, 109
Admin
<font style="font-family: times new roman;" size="3">A permanent headache? You should seek medical help.
Unfortunately, my experience is that the least-competent people are the ones who are often the loudest about their alleged competence. This is a good read:
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf
</font><font style="font-family: times new roman;" size="3">Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own. Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
</font><font style="font-family: times new roman;" size="3">
It is very applicable in many areas. For instance, people who give unsought advice are often the very worst-qualified to give it. The biggest clue is their insistence that you have to follow it.
My advice here, you might find of use.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
</font>
Admin
If only it were bull. What I think people aren't understanding here is that the guy who poured this gem on me isn't in programming at all- he's working as a mechanical engineer, his 'minor' degree was CS, but I don't think he was really awake during the classes. Having seen people who graduated high school without the ability to actually read and write makes me acutely aware of how easily people can pass classes they really shouldn't.
This particular engineer never quits amazing, tho.. just a few days ago the very same engineer was standing near me when someone asked me about sensing ammonia gas using an electrochemical sensor at or near the LEL (lower explosive limit). For NH3 gas, the LEL is right around 18%. I replied that we didn't really have a sensor that could read that high- the highest range sensor I use is 2,000 parts per million, and we'd need a 180,000 ppm sensor for LEL. The engineer piped in at this point, saying:
"It's worse than that. I ran the numbers using mass, and you'd need a 900,000 ppm sensor to really sense at LEL".
Huh?
Admin
I now have a whole new level of respect for Purdue. :)
Admin
I'm with you on the Computer Science, but I have a different (not very well informed) opinion about other departments. My Calc 2 teacher there was probably the best teacher I have ever had, of any subject. (A guy named "Price", I think. Apparently doesn't teach there any more.) The only class I took in the engineering school was the computer engineering 101 class, which was a great course with a breadboard lab. CS should have dropped their own architectures class and sent all the CS people to that.
The math department and school of engineering simply felt like a serious education and not vocational training. But, IANAE.
Admin
I think this is probably legit. I have a CIS degree (not a CS degree by a long shot, but it still has a lot of overlap) because it was the closest thing I could get to CS (I was already coding for money by that point). I took C++ the quarter before I graduated- also the single class taught by the head of the masters degree in information systems. The first test came and the requirement was to create a text file, read the data, and then spit it back out to the screen. No problem right? Except that one of the girls in the class did not understand what "create a text file" means. And the professor (remember, this is the only undergraduate class he teaches) said, "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that. You should know that by now." She left the test in tears. I felt bad for her, really, because it was the education that left her high and dry. The material was never presented to her. But I think the professor did the right thing. Someone who doesn't know how to create a text file (or at least what a text file is) should not receive a computer degree of any kind. But she did graduate, and I'm willing to bet there are plenty of people with technical degrees out there who don't know about hex either.
Heck, the first time I heard about hex was in high school so I could learn how to spell dirty words on my calculator. :)
On a side note, by the end of the quarter the professor had been beaten into submission by the students. There was really nothing he could do except fail 90% of the class, and I just don't think he had it in him. So he did the next best thing. He gave two versions of the final and let the students pick. One was non-visual and required slogging through a lot of logic, which was no easy task in the allotted 2 hours. The other option was an MFC project where you read from a text file and display the information in a window. Only two of us chose the MFC project because the rest of the class didn't get the concept of visual development and I walked out of the test in 10 minutes with a 100. I don't think those who chose the other test had a chance to finish. I always thought that was a
last defiant act by the professor against the department that allowed so many students through without really learning.
Admin
Compiler Design was not required for my CS degree.. However, assembly programming was required, and we had to learn hex in that class. Actually, the professor wanted us to understand the concept of converting between numbers in any base. "Why? Because some bastard like me might just ask you to convert a number to base-5 on an exam." He was one of my favorite professors. :)
Other than that, I don't remember hex being taught in any other courses (at least not in the sense that we were tested on it), but it was always mentioned in the intro programming classes (when explaining literals- for example, 014 != 14 != 0x14, at least for languages like C and Java), and it was used a lot in the Numeric Methods class (when we covered IEEE floating point numbers).
Admin
Yes, that is correct. Most Native American derived names are converted into French and English pronunciations and spelling, as with most words that are adopted into another language. That still does not make them English or French. And Chicago basically means "Smelly Onion"! My point wasn't so much how much of a smarty I am, but how his Masters in Economy or whatever made him an expert on everything (You would have had to have known him.). Most of what I learned came from Boy Scouts and such. IANANAE (I Am Not A Native Americans Expert :-)
Admin
Admin
You desperately need to recalibrate your Cynicismometer.
Seriously, I have no idea why you believe yourself deeply familiar with the teaching curricula of so many educational institutions,
nor why you apparently think that all of the degrees offered are legitimate, and I especially fail to understand why you're so sure
that they even mention hex. I myself am sure that the focus is on object-orientedness instead.
As for the word "extensively" . . . truly, it deserves no place in your sentence. I think "sparingly" is more accurate.
ok
dpm
Admin
Most people were exposed to hex via C coding or assembly. These days, it may be possible to get the bare minimum comp sci without being exposed to it.
I don't see how he could have taken any sort of computer architecture class and not been exposed to it.
I guess he thinks he's "brillant".
Admin
"Purdue" University? Or "Perdu" University?!
Admin
During my college years (I graduated in 1984) I sometimes thought I was the only person going for a CS degree
who actually wanted to learn how to program. My classmates --- especially the females --- were perfectly open
about their goal, which was to use their degree to gain entry into a large company and from there move into
Marketing or Management. Believe me, it showed; knowledge of programming techniques was something to be
avoided if possible and forgotten quickly if not.
ok
dpm
Admin
Hey, man, better than those 1,000,001 ppm sensors. Them's a biatch!
Admin
Wow. I went to a small, mostly unknown school in east Texas (SFA for those who care) and got my CS degree there. I have taken a lot of shit for not having gone to UT or one of the private universities here (Rice, SMU, whatever). I can't say I'm surprised that this guy doesn't know hex, but come on. I spent $3k a year on my education and our entire first architecture/assembly class was chock full of not only binary addition/subtraction/representation, but hex as well. We had to be able to perform the same operations on hex and binary as we did on decimal and we were not allowed to use calculators.
And this is at a school where I was a Lumberjack and the biggest program on campus was Forestry. (not to say I disliked the school)
Admin
ha, because perdu means lost in french
Admin
In the last few years, I constantly met CIS grads who didn't know what HEX was. And yes, they were programmers......well, the piece of paper said they were.
Admin
What is a relational database?
You are just making stuff up aren't you?
I have two certificates from Rio Linda Technical College, one is in Microcomputer Applications, AND I have a High School Equlivency diploma, and I've never heard of a relational database.
Maybe you are talking about a relationship database. I've used one of those on LoveMatch.com.
Admin
I would really love to call bull on this one. I went to a fairly poor school not known for engineering, and hex was still taught in one of the first few required classes. This was a mere 3 years ago. The idea that a programmer not at least know what hex is boggles my mind so completely I simply cannot believe it. Especially if he's working with hardware, I guess I could see it with a guy who writes nothing but a quick web page here and there.
Then again, I'm working on a system written by a "senior programmer" in my company that believes that G and H are hex digits, as well.
Admin
If you really want to weed out those kinds of people, look at a Computer Engineering degree. When people flunked out of our CE program, they went to other schools and got perfect grades in CS, Accounting, Marketing, etc.
Oh, and for the record, I don't think we were explicitly taught Hex in our CE program either. But if you got to the Embedded Systems Software course and didn't know it, you had to find a book fast.
As for myself, I learned about the principals of non-decimal number systems, and converting between different bases, in my high school Computer Science class.
Admin
The first deveoper I worked with on a team went to UT for an EE degree. He once had an exam that was "create a 4 function calculator" in whatever lowlevel language he was using (I'm not an EE, so I don't remember all of the specifics). He quickly knocked out the task and left, confident he aced it. Only to find out that he got a 75 because his division answer didn't match the one in the textbook, though it did work, of course. Heaven forbid that someone be able to think instead of regurgitating answers. He tried to appeal the decision but wasn't able to. Essentially it was the professor's class so that's the way it went. He left that semester and graducated from U of H.
On a personal note, he was also one heck of a programmer.
Admin
Having seen "Object-Oriented" code written by Computer Engineers, I'll pass.
That's like saying, "When people flunk out of medical school, they often go into dental school. Therefore, have an OBGYN perform your root canal."
Admin
You also may have missed that the guy was an Engineer, a Mechanical Engineer. Generally when I see the engineers are better that Computer Scientists argument, they include all engineers.
Admin
Indeed. System/360 assembler programmers used quite a bit of it (I wonder if there are any 360 emulators out there? They're a good teaching tool as well as the 8086 emu that's out there.
Octal was useful for the DEC PDP/8, but fell out of disuse since Hex is much more elegant. I remember coding graphics on the Atari-800... you needed a sheet of graph paper to create your "character" you were going to display on screen, then you had to go column by column converting the pixels into binary format--doing all the calculations on paper before feeding them into BASIC.
Admin
Are you suggesting there is another way? If so, what am I going to do with all this graph paper?
Admin
Geeze, now I've got to learn hex all over again, I always though 32 decimal = 20 hex - Oh well, I wasn't doing anything useful anyway!
Admin
Octal is more elegant if your CPU word length is a multiple of 3, such as 12, 18, or 36. I belive that the PDP-8s were 12 bit and the PDP-10s (DECsystems) were 36 bit.
Admin
I experimented with hex once, I tried to multiply 2C89 by 5 and all I got was DEAD.
Admin
Ignore that - just having a duh moment! 10hex bytes does indeed equal 32 characters. TGIF!
Admin
There are two hex characters in a byte. I thought of using "nybble" instead of "character", but thought it might be obscure.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Admin
In the 3 years that I've been studying Computer Science (In the US as well as in Germany) I've attended at LEAST 6 different classes/lectures that covered number systems other than base-10.
It's part of pretty much every computer architecture and math course.
Admin
All that they're being taught these days is nothing but OOP and HLL. This is what happens when you don't get them started with Asm first - they don't understand a single thing about how the machine actually functions and just know how to write (sort-of-working WTF'd) code. It's pathetic, the quality of programmers these days...
I can do conversions hex <> dec mentally on 4-digit hex numbers and add+subtract mentally with them. It's what you need to do when programming in Asm (the low-level type, not the high-level-assembler-lookalikes that are supposed to be Asm these days). Representation of digital data should be the first thing taught in any CS course.
Admin
That's what happens when you don't practice safe hex. Always use a console.
--Rank
"Do. Or do not. There is no try. Except in C#." --Yoda
Admin
Yes! There are two that are two that are being actively developed but at this time I only remember one, Hercules. Hercules runs under Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It can emulate 370, 390 and Z/Architecture machines. Get it and all the goodies that go along with it at http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/.
Admin
Yes, but you'd recognize it if you saw it. Which is the entire point; it's not "can you divide two 3 digit numbers in hex without converting to decimal?" (and yes, one of my CS profs asked that on a test), it's "would you recognize 3ffe when you see it as hex?"
Admin
Kids these days!
Ok, so the guy didn't know hex -- he had a minor in CS (which means basically nothing, in my experience) and was a mechanical engineer. Obviously he had never done any low-level programming, and should be ridiculed like the noobie he is.
That having been said, what is with this "colleges should teach different number systems as part of CS" crap? TEACH number systems? There's no point in that -- you can make me understand how hex, octal and binary work but unless I need to use them I'm just going to forget as soon as I pass the course. So really the complaint should be that people don't have to use hex to get their CS degrees... and that's why this guy claiming to have 2 degrees is stupid. He doesn't have 2 degrees. He has minor in CS, meaning he probably took about 6 classes. That could easily be a couple java-based intro to programming/data structures/algorithms courses, a discreet math course or two and then some other "high level language" classes. It doesn't surprise me at all that he snuck through without every seeing hex.
Whatever... my e-penis is still bigger than yours.
Admin
Yes Gene - "nybble" is obscure because it's much more commonly called a "nibble." Have a nice day!
Sincerely,
Richard Nixon
Admin
Wow. I learned non-decimal systems in Grade 7 general math class, including things like dibble-dabble style conversions and bitwise Boolean operations -- and that was back in '71. Keep in mind that "computer lab", when I went to high school, meant Electrographic pencils, Mark Sense Hollerith-style cards, Fortran IV, and a four-week wait for twenty minutes of batch time and a printout of results from the local university's mainframe. Geeks didn't wear RTFM tees, they wore blue suits (lab coat optional), and only a Chosen Few interacted with computers other than by cursing at their electricity bill. What the hell are they teaching in school these days, now that nearly eveybody needs to know a little bit about these confounded machines?
Admin
Nah. For one thing there are degree mills. But furthermore, you don't know exactly what kind of "computer science" degree this is. It could be one of those "master's" programs that consist of learning about Microsoft Office. This guy could be puffing up a three-month intro-to-IT program into a "CS degree".
Or maybe it's an awful, trivial CS program. Or maybe he cheated. Or both.
Admin
...Okay. This guy has apparently come from the very dawn of computers, where Hexa hasn't been widely used yet and is some new-fangled technology. I hope he doesn't have any related qualifications... it puts CS students to shame. As if they aren't shame enough already.