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Admin
Am I the only person who thinks that HTML can be a program, and while on the surface non-sensical, it could be insightful? And that therefore, while funny WRT common sense, it actually isn't a WTF?
HTML programs are written in a format humans can understand.
HTML programs uses various syntax elements (the programming language) to create a desired output.
The HTML programs are interpreted by applications called browsers.
Sure, there's no flow control but that doesn't make something not a programming language. While the majority is just used for outputting documents, PostScript is a programming language as well, and you can call your .ps files PostScript programs and nobody should argue. I don't see the difference in calling an HTML file a program and calling a perl "file" that outputs text a program.
Admin
I feel sorry for most people teaching a programming course. My experience is that the students are more likely to be stupid than the teacher. I just completed the course "Numeriek natuurkunde" (Numerical physics), a second year course. The cource was basicly about solving differential equations using different algorithms in C. No programming experience was assumed and almost none was present. The course was well organized and well taught,b ut the teacher still had a hard time.
Admin
Not that hard to believe...
My college Calculus professor couldn't do calculus. All her examples were copied from a notebook unto the board. If there was a mistake she said he would correct it that night and show us in the morning. She could not answer any questions. Her son graded the papers. I knew him in high school.
After I finished Cal 1 & 2 she was moved out of the department and became dean.
Admin
Clearly the professor isn't the only one .
Admin
No, you're certainly not the only one. But you're just as wrong as all the others. HTML is a markup language, by definition and by usage.
Admin
Actually, Postscript has flow control.
Admin
Actually, it is a WTF. You are exactly the kind of person who is responsible for bad software and bad web pages in all fields. You shoot for "close enough" instead of "correct and reliable."
I don't know what you intended when you used the phrase "Valid HTML Document," but I read it as meaning "validating HTML document." The HTML you've provided certainly will not validate.
If you are using the "strict.dtd" URI in that DOCTYPE declaration, then omission of <html> or <head> is not just lazy; it is a syntax error. The spec says that user agents are permitted to work around it, but that doesn't make it correct.
It's forgivable of someone who's just putting up a web page of some vacation photos or pictures of his cat. However, I can't forgive a college teaching half-assed practices as "correct and proper." Telling students they needn't bother with <html> is like telling chemistry or physics students they needn't calibrate their instruments before an experiment.
Admin
I remember being scolded for using vim instead of NEdit on a C programming course, 8 months into a CS degree. Never mind that I was finished the task, or that I seemed to actually know what I was doing, I was using the wrong text editor!!111!
On this same course I was also marked down for using dynamic allocation and pointers. Sure, that's the way to encourage kids to learn; you punish them for demonstrating where they've read ahead or have prior experience, and you drive your own teaching so slowly it takes a year for you to get past basic control structures. I knew I should have gone for BSc Binge Drinking.
At this same uni, the resident web expert's website was made using Dreamweaver + extra dodgy handmade hacking, with a look and feel roughly along the lines of your average MySpace page. Truely ahead of his time.
Admin
Am I the only person who thinks that HTML can be a program, and while on the surface non-sensical, it could be insightful? And that therefore, while funny WRT common sense, it actually isn't a WTF?
I'll make sure I refer to my next Word or WordPerfect document as a program instead of a document... hey, it doesn't have flow control, but it has all those neat markup codes in it (if you know what features to turn on) that are pretty much exactly the same as HTML markup.
If you start implementing Javascript, VB, ASP, SQL or what have you into your HTML, then you might have a leg to stand on.
Admin
is this like how i once got an F for using a for loop before it was taught?
Admin
Admin
>>"Honestly, this sounds about par for the course for a Community College / Junior College instructor. I had a couple of real boneheads in the comp sci department -- and this was at a silicon valley JC -- supposedly one of the best in the country, at that.
You'd think they'd be able to find someone technically competent to teach at a school literally 8 minutes down the road from Apple HQ."
But they had some good ones too. I've had good experiences with JC programming teachers both in Hawaii and in California -- but there's a trick. I was taking night classes, not day classes. The night classes were frequently taught by industry professionals, and that worked pretty well. After taking those classes I was seriously disappointed with some classes at a university I took later.
Admin
How horrible that you went to a school that uses the same language that MIT uses to teach their computer science students! Those MIT freaks must be so out of touch.
Admin
This kind of reminds me of a computer class I took in junior high. The math teacher was tasked with teaching us about computers, and she was probably at most one chapter ahead of us in the book at all times.
I actually didn't do well in that class, because grading was based on this ridiculous book instead of actual computer knowledge. I distinctly remember a question where they said "What is the short term memory inside the computer called?". I answered RAM, but actually it turns out that I was wrong. "Main memory" was the answer they were looking for.
I still have yet to hear anyone going out to buy more "main memory" for their computer, or having "main memory" problems, or needing a "main memory" upgrade.
Remember kids, in school what matters is parroting back what the teacher tells you, not silly things like independently verifiable facts or critical thinking.
Admin
Playschool U, for sure... At my school, which was by now means Ivy League, a course we were taking (Operating Systems) required us to create a group web-page on post stuff on the page. One student replied with "But, we haven't had a web development class... Nobody said we would have to develop web pages!" To this the teacher replied, "Are you serious? It's easy, open a web-page from a site and figure it out. If that doesn't work out, here <hands student something>". The teacher handed the student a drop slip for the class and proceeded to tell us if we wanted to learn how to write web pages, we were in the wrong major (computer science) and that web pages were just another tool, like Word or an editor.
Admin
Admin
I didn't believe it either, but I went to http://validator.w3.org , pasted it into the box, and whaddaya know, it does.
Admin
I took a second year course at my university on file structures. We did a few labs and found that any advice we got from the TA's seemed to always turn out wrong, when asked for clarification on subjects we would be told things that were just down right incorrect and subsequently alot of use did poorly on said labs due to incorrect information given by TA's (We were not asking for answers but for clarification on what certain things were actually doing). When we brought this up to the Prof, she loudly and angrily announced to the class she was tired of hearing complaints about this, that it was our fault for getting the ansers wrong and we should not blame the TA's as none of them had taken the course before. I always thought that TA's were supposed to have a first hand knowledge of the material in order to assist teachers in helping the students. I guess I was incorrect on that, from that day on I basically gave up on asking any TA for assistance and figured it out for myself.
Admin
You should of met my HTML professor... she thought that the only way to animate an image was flash or javascript, and that flash was smaller say... gif.
Admin
Admin
Not to criticize, but RAM is called Main Memory. Read an OS book and that is how it is referenced. When you have multiple answers that are both correct for the same problem, use the one the teacher wants. It is far easier on both of you.
Tanta
Admin
It's Devry, isn't it? Just admit it. Come clean man. Gotta be Devry.
Admin
"Scheme" belongs to the functional paradigm (based on lambda calculus) which is, although a must for every computer scientist, a paradigm not very useful in enterprise applications. The object oriented paradigm fits very well in most situations so it's the predominant one. I have heard that some universities have tried using the functional paradigm in entry-level courses because its recursive nature seems more natural for humans.
Personally, I think it should be saved for a higher-level course where the student may actually understand why it's different from other paradigms like OO or the logical paradigm.
Admin
Yeah...I'm not buying it either. HTML is a markup language. It's more like a datafile supplied to a program -- the browser in this case -- much the same way you would use a flat textfile of numbers in a statistics program.
It certainly isn't Turing-complete, doesn't have any means for implementing algorithms.
Admin
Yeh could be... had one teacher for Assembly Language .. read from the text the entire course and barely knew assembly - if at all. An overhead example was suppose to show how to include assembly code in a C program. It took him a couple of minutes to figure out that it was upside down and backwards.
Did not surpize me though - since the electrical engineer that I worked with at the time (Ph.D. that could not soldier two wires together) asked me about assembly once - seem that he was asked to teach it at the local community college. My reply of "uhhh you know next to nothing about assembly language" was met with "that is OK ... I have a book"
Then there was the 400 level CS students that could not create a make file, use command line FTP or any command line build tools in the Systems class that I had ...
Admin
I am just not gullible enough to believe this. The integrity of this site has just taken a hit. I've been visiting for months now, but I am questioning if I will remove this bookmark. I feel insulted.
Admin
Admin
Hah. Let them burn - this is college, you are expected to be able to wipe your ass.
Admin
This kind of thing occurs all the time. I don't kno whow many times I saw this in college. I once had a C++ teacher that had a PhD in Genetic Engineering. Her exact words were, "I decided to leave genetics and go into programming because I wanted to do something more challenging." She took one (1)... yes, 1, intro to C++ course and then was allowed to teach (in actuality, she was the only one teaching) the upper level C++ courses (including Advanced Data Structures in C++) because she had a PhD.
Needless to say, the quality of her instruction was lacking. She was a very, very intelligent woman, but she didn't know anything about programming.
Admin
My AP Computer Science teacher in high school was like this. Easily the best teacher/professor I have had, regardless of teaching subject.
My first programming course at college (technically second, since I tested out of "Programming for Engineers"), "Programming for CS/CE majors" had a professor who was the complete opposite. She would write stuff like on the board during lecture...
Then as us what was wrong with the code (the intended answer in this case would be that result starts at 0 rather than 1). Someone, of course, would point out that she used three different variable names for the result. She would then turn around, and proceed to stare at her code for about a minute or two before changing it to...
She even makes references to teaching in the mid-90s, so she isn't even new at this!Admin
And once again we get some free entertainment from someone who hasn't checked his (or her) facts, but feels free to lay down the law anyway.
As already stated, it is good practice to specify the HTML, HEAD and BODY elements explicitly, but it is not syntactically required. Try it.
Admin
Wrong. It is both Valid and Validating. Copy and paste my HTML snippet into the validator and see for yourself. Also see the spec http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.3 which quite clearly states:
It may be lazy, but its certainly not a syntax error and it is 100% valid as per the validator.
You should really read the spec before you start throwing insults around...
Admin
No, CS profs should have some idea about how their stuff is used. Quantum physics is a pure research field for the most part, but CS is applied every day. The idea is to produce profs that can at least operate a PC and have some sort of clue.
Admin
Oh c'mon. Scheme is just glorified Lisp.
Admin
I was professionally tutoring students in C++, and one of my charges failed a class, and I got threatened with expulsion (from college). At 14wks into the 16wk semester, she had a program that required her to read in some string data. She was clueless and didn't understand how to do it. I thought she was joking, but she wasn't. I showed her how to create an array and read it in, and also how to use the STL string class. I told her I didn't know which way her prof. would want her doing it, so she should ask. Well, she didn't. She turned in the program with both methods in it. The teacher failed her because they hadn't been taught arrays yet, and they don't even teach the STL in that class. 14/16 weeks in a C++ programming class, and they hadn't even been taught arrays! WTF. The prof was expecting them to read it in one character at a time and do a char by char comparison.
Admin
Actually, according to your own link, the start and end tags of HTML, HEAD, and BODY are all optional. I also see nowhere on that page where it says that a page must have anything at all.
That said, if I were teaching a class in web design (HTML is not web programming, IMHO, which should be the first tip-off that this course curriculum is badly designed, especially for a 200-level course), I would encourage students to use HTML, HEAD, and BODY. It's good practise, and it would be a good way of teaching them the proper use of those tags. It's much worse to use them wrong than it is to omit them, especially since they can and do influence user agent behavior.
Admin
redminds me of my networking class where the professor stated that client machines ALWAYS use ports > 1024 and servers ALWAYS use ports < 1024. When i talk to him about how i've setup web servers to run on ports > 1024, he said, "well i wasn't talking about proprietary stuff!"
riiiiiight....
Admin
To be fair, I don't mind that she called them HTML programs and that she was running them in IE. It's not standard lingo of course but it's a fair representation of what's happening. IE acting as the virtual machine.
Of course, this forgiving view doesn't extend to people who are supposedly teaching the damn subject!
Admin
Did you also call the cartridges that we used to put into Atari 2600s "tapes" ?
Admin
If you're being serious... i'm sorry. There are no variables in HTML no concept of memory... no concept of loops, data structures,state , algorithms, scope ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language
HTML does not control the behavior of a machine.
As far as your .ps example... Post script actually has the concept of a variable; the concept of a function. Graphics can be "Calculated" in PS rathern than stored in a format like JPEG It even looks like it has the concept of scope and id bet even loops too. HTML has absolutely NONE of these qualities therefore is NOT a programming language. If someone can program in post script they could probably pick up basic Basic without having to learn any new concepts. Where an HTML writer would not have any of the concepts I mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#The_language
Admin
dude, you got a dell! I did the same thing with the dell PC they gave me at work... had a big silver logo button that moves but does nothing.. i was like "man thats one quite pc.. oh wait its not on. duh!"
captcha: paste.. humm tastes great
Admin
While that claim is convenient its not really correct, for instance ANSI/SQL is not turing complete, and its still considered a programming langage. There's also Charity :)
Admin
And the start tag and end tag for those are optional. The only requirement is for a title to be present.
Admin
It probably depends on the school. Unfortunately, I think this story is entirely too believable. You must not have believed the recent fresh-out-of-school new hire stories either.
Academia is still a human institution and humans are capable of remarkable brillance.
Admin
Yep, you don't either. IE and Firefox will render it because they have a duty to at least attempt rendering whatever godawful crap gets thrown at them. This doesn't mean you don't write proper HTML. An HTML document must start with the <html> tag and end with the </html> tag. That is part of the standard. If you don't do that, you are not compliant with the HTML standard. Period.
Chris Mattern
Admin
Don't forget the administration. They have no time nor will to review curriculum, attend a class or confirm competence. It's all about bums in seats and to hell with "real" education. I've also taught part-time and have seen program coordinators write course descriptions like "learn how to build Apache web pages using C+ and CSS"... sure... I can teach a course like that.... and please fill up the class with 55+ seniors who have never used a computer...
Captch: tps
Admin
Again with the insults.You are, however, wrong and should really read the spec before you start typing.
It is valid as per the spec. Copy and paste my HTML snippet into the validator and see for yourself. Also see the spec <font color="#02469b">http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/global.html#h-7.3</font> which quite clearly states:
Ommiting the html tag is 100% valid.
You would have realized this already if you read the rest of the comments in this thread too, I'm not the only one to point this out. :)
Admin
HTML is more aptly described as a markup language than a programming language and is therefore so named. HTML does not describe a set of instructions to be carried out sequentially (a "program") but instead describes how elements should be displayed or marked up.
You could say that HTML is a declarative programming language (one that tells the machine what should be done, not how to do it) but to do so routinely would make you look pretty self-important--especially if you didn't actually have any actual 1337 pr0gramming skillz.
Admin
I agree they should have a clue, but I'm sick of people saying that CS professors should have industry experience, etc. They seem to forget that CS is NOT software engineering. When I took CS in college I took a total of 4 "programming"/software engineering classes. Most of the rest involved programming but that wasn't the focus. If I'm taking a class on computational geometry, am I going to want a professor who has researched computational geometry for the last 20 years, or some guy who spent the last 20 years writing business apps?
I'm not trying to justify today's WTF or any of the other horror stories, only pointing out the WTF of the proposed solution.
Admin
And if you tell IE strict, it will take you at your word and be strict. It assumes that if you have the sense to add a DOCTYPE, you know better than to write tag soup.