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| 2000/2/11-13 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus] UID:17485 Activity:very high |
2/10 I get an impression that new grads coming out of berkeley don't
have much exposure to C. I mean pure C, not C++. How do most
people feel about this? I guess I'm asking alumni who are hiring
and also current students.
\_ I've spent the last year doing project in only C or Java, no C++.
\_ they don't necessarily have much exposure to C++ either...
\_ old grads are better than new grads. New grads are for the
most part java weenies who bitch about assignments being
"too hard."
\_ No, new grads are pussies who call themselves EECS majors
but wouldn't take a single EE class if it killed them.
\_ That is so true. At least the Java portion. I've been going
back to recruit for quite a number of years. Recently I've
noticed that a lot of them don't know how to use malloc. My
company does almost all straight C. No C++ and only a little
Java. Looking at stacks of resumes of newgrads with Java
experience has become rather tiresome.
\_ Hey, I know C. Wanna give me a job?
\_ Perhaps a one hour session about the differences between C++
and C is sufficient.
\_ I wouldn't hire a Cal CS grad if I had another choice. Not a
current/recent grad. I'd hire almost anyone who graduated from
about 93 or so and earlier.
\_ There's some truth to that. But you have to understand
that only 90% of Cal CS grads are idiotic morons. The
other 10% are worth looking at.
\_ why do you say that?
\_ I say that because the program has become even
more worthless over the years than when I was here.
Or maybe they're just dumbing it down to match the
quality of the students. Either way, same result.
\_ what other choice would you take instead of a cal grad?
\_ Sigh. I said "93 or earlier". If I had a spot for
some youngster to fill, I'd take the one who seemed
to be the brightest and easiest to get along with,
no matter what degree they had or where from.
\_ Compared to the other grads out there, Cal CS grads aren't half
bad.
\_ I agree. You could do a lot worse. A lot of Cal State
schools were teaching in Ada as recently as 1996 (the last
time I worked with someone attending such a school). There
are probably better programs, but Cal's is one of the better
ones. The rest depends upon the individual. You're just
spoiled living in the Silicon Valley. You should see what
they're dredging up in places like Virginia. --dim
\_ Pfft. Don't bother going all the way to Virginia -- just go
to a job fair at San Jose State!
\_ What's bad about Ada? -- Ada illiterate
\_ it's a pointless waste of time that no one uses, not
even people like Hilfinger who helped develop it
\_ We did some ADA in 60c with Hilfy.
\_ I don't run my company's division by comparison. Excellence is
an absolute. It's exactly that sort of half assed, two bit,
slacker moron attitude that so pervades current educational
'thought' that makes me want to vomit and then just train kids
fresh from any random high school instead. At least they'll
know that they don't know anything unlike the current twit
brigade churned out in droves today from places like Cal.
\- just out of curiousity, why do you guys feel there is
difference between a 1990 and 1995 grad? do you think the
dept has made a change due to a faculty personnel change, or
there has been differnt selection criteria for the students
or was there a change of requirements to complete the major
or what? --psb
\_ Because *they* (the people asserting a difference) were
students in 1990, but had graduated by 1995. Simple as
that. "Kids these days . . . *I* had to walk UPHILL in
the SNOW -- *BOTH WAYS*!!"
\_ How do you walk uphill both ways?
\_ Obviously you've never walked around Berkeley much
\_ heh.
\_ No, "*they*" graduated in 1987. Now go take your low
grade promoting of the mediocre and "it's all relative"
pseudo social promotion self esteem raising crap elsewhere.
\_ I get the impression that it's also a case of the CS dept.
being far more impacted than in 1990. Since there's a lot
of money in IT in general, CS in school tends to attract
a lot of people who're not in it for the fun so much as
for the "glamour" and the cash. I think part of the
underlying attitude is that in every field, someone who
is fundamentally enthusiastic about it will probably be
of higher professional value than someone who is able to
survive a factory, correct me if I'm wrong. -John
\_ I think this is entirely correct. The people who are in
it for the love say "Cool, I get to learn C. Now I can
hack on *fill in neat C-based open source project here*.
The ones who are in it for the money say "I don't want to
learn another language. I'm just going to do the project
in Java.", or, if forced to work in something != Java,
they do enough to simply eek by. Usually this consists
of writing a flawed, buggy piece of code that may or may
not work, begging someone with some C clue to help them
debug their syntax errors, not even bothering to clean up
programmitical and logic errors, and then begging for
points because "We did a good write-up. It doesn't
matter that the program doesn't actually run."
Additionally, some of the more clued folks are more prone
to hack code than worry about grades so, at least for L&S
CS, some of them are being driven out by considerablly
less competent but more grade-driven lamers. With this
environment, it's not surprising that many of this type
of clued individual is very tempted to drop out and work
since so many companies are willing to take them, and the
compensation is very nice. All that said, just because
the lamers to clued folks ratio has grown doesn't mean
its approaching infinity so don't jump to the conclusion
that all current Cal CS grads suck. -dans
\_ But you just said yourself that the better ones are
likely to just quit school and take my job offer.
\_ The problem with this is that without the degree
there is no way to distinguish between someone
who dropped/flunked out because they were too
creative/talented/involved to be academically
successful, and those who did so because they're
just plain not real bright or motivated. -John
\_ And with the degree you can distinguish the
generally interviews at all. Generally.
talent from the grade whores how exactly?
\_ There is a very EASY WAY to distinguish,
that almost noone does. Sit the applicant
down in front of a computer, and say
"here, write code to do this task".
"here, write code to do this task". Of
theory stated earlier about highing the bright HS
course, this is only easy if you aren't
a PhD that has no clue about programming.
\_ That isn't clue. Any child can learn to
code in a few weeks at most. Clue is about
higher level stuff like choosing the right
algorythm, data structures, language, and
code/engineering principles of design.
This is hardly any different from my half-serious
emacs user was here
that's it, no more motd
go away
cat /dev/null > /etc/motd.public
emacs user was here
theory stated earlier about hiring the bright HS
kids and training them on site. I don't see much
in your statement that promotes current CS grads.
Grade whores? Who needs 'em. I never once asked
an applicant what their grades were. The ones who
put GPA on their resume in the 3.7+ range don't
generally get interviews at all. Generally.
\_ Actually, I'm inclined to believe your HS kids
theory, but mostly because I believe kids are a
lot smarter than they are credited with. I said
that SOME of the better ones are LIKELY to quit
school. This doesn't mean they all do. My goal
was to point out that not ALL Cal CS grads suck.
I agree that many do, but I didn't want to see
it left as a blanket statement. I have no
intention of promoting the large quantity of
grade whores out there. I agree. Who needs 'em.
But not all of us are grade whores.
-dans
\_ No problem. I did say "generally" a few
times. I do understand the concept of
unfairly labelling an entire group of people.
I did go to Berkeley afterall. :)
\_ c/lisp vs c++/java
hacked interesting kernel or device driver code vs
getting enlightenment to run on linux box at home
motd police was here (watch out) |
| 2000/2/11 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:17486 Activity:moderate |
2/11 It's been some time since you've graced the motd with your genius,
ilyas. Could you condescend to post some musings on a subject
weighty to the motd? Please, ilyas, enrich us! --ilyas' #2 fan
\_ ilyas numba two fan, numba one heeeepocrite!
\_ I too was wondering what had become of Our Lord Of High Logic And
All Things Correct True And Right. --ilyas #1 Fan |
| 2000/2/11 [Uncategorized] UID:17487 Activity:moderate |
2/11 What is ftpmail?
\_ man ftpmail |
| 2000/2/11 [Uncategorized] UID:17488 Activity:nil |
2/10 _____ ____ _____ _____ ____ ____ _ ____ _ ____ __
| ___| _ \| ____| ____| / ___|| _ \ / \ | _ \| |/ /\ \ / /
| |_ | |_) | _| | _| \___ \| |_) / _ \ | |_) | ' / \ V /
| _| | _ <| |___| |___ ___) | __/ ___ \| _ <| . \ | |
|_| |_| \_\_____|_____| |____/|_| /_/ \_\_| \_\_|\_\ |_|
With 2 proofs of purchase. |
| 2000/2/11 [Uncategorized] UID:17489 Activity:nil |
2/11 Does anyone have a lego mindstorms set? Any thoughts on the
merits of different development tools for them? |
| 2000/2/11-12 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Troll] UID:17490 Activity:high |
2/11 Where have all the good troller gone? I only see lame flamebaits
and small-time trolls. We need some big time trollers to stir things
up a bit.
\_ uh, I guess this is a troll too?
\_ it's a meta-troll.
\_ The motd was over 470 lines, most of it trolling. What exactly
qualifies in your book as a "good troll"? Once agin, the motd
is not here for your amusement. If you want it to be amusing,
you must make it so. Now go get a cookie.
\_ the motd IS for my amusement you fool.
\_ Then clearly it isn't satisfying your needs so you should
fuck off and die. Thank you. |
| 2000/2/11-13 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:17491 Activity:low |
2/11 Are most upper division courses in CS in Java? Do they teach C++/C
anymore?
\_ Computer science isn't the business of teaching C/C++ or Java
or Perl or any other programming language. Nor is it about
"how to program either". But from what I've been through
many upper div CS courses still use C/C++ including 162, 164
184 and EE 122 (yeah, it's not classified under CS but oh well).
Some like 170 let you have the option of using Java or whatever
you prefer. And 152 uses VHDL. Again, the point of the course
isn't how to program. That can easily be learned in a few weeks
and are what the CS 9x service courses are for.
\_ CS170 almost never allows Java. When did it??!? CS164 is taught
in Java once in a while. Wang let you do your 186 project in
Java if you prefer. A lot of students use Java for 169 and 160
(classes where you have a choice). 162, 170, and 184 are the
most C++ oriented. Oh ya, EE122 usually prohibits Java... at
least it has for the past 4 semesters.
\_ Java is allowed since "C is too hard... waaaah... I always
get segfaults and core dumps and don't know what it means!!"
\_ That would be a good point except for the fact that it
it isn't true. Java usually isn't allowed in CS170.
\_ Wrong. At least for the past 3 semesters, there were
no official restrictions on what language to use for
the projects.
\_ Agree.
Nuclear physics, academia = quantum mech, hardcore equations
Nuclear physics, industry = cleaning up nuclear waste
By the same token,
Computer science, academia = hardcore algorithm
Computer science, industry = debug other people's code
As usual, academia=no money=:(, industry=money=:)
\_ having said that, while it is not the purpose of the
undergraduate curriculum to teach people languages or how
to program, as matter of neccesity, students must learn
how to, even if they have to do it on their own.
\_ kchang? is that you kchang??? |
| 2000/2/11-12 [Computer/SW/RevisionControl] UID:17492 Activity:nil |
2/11 Why isn't mehlhaff's motd logger running any more?!?!?
\_ Why are you asking this on the motd instead of asking mehlhaff in
email? Go away.
\_ every once in a while RCS messes up and hangs wanting user
input. Sometimes even RCS is lame... -ERic |
| 2000/2/11-13 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:17493 Activity:high |
2/11 Responce to C, C++, new grad, love for comp sci, love for $$$, 1 word:
\_ The smart ones learn to spell or run a spell checker.
\_ And how to count words.
The dumb and greedy ones work in the industry
\_ think C++, Bell Labs.
\_ C++ is a perfect example of industry stupidity.
The smart ones go back to academia
It is as simple as that.
\_ the smart, greedy ones go work in 'XYZ labs'
\_ Have a cookie, troll.
\_ This is not true, as all of the major contributions to cs have been
mostly performed by industry. Without AT&T there would be no Unix
(BSD or otherwise). Without Sun we would be stuck with RFS.
\_ And without Berkeley we wouldn't have the 50 million BSD
derivatives, RISC, RAID, IEEE 754, yadayadaya. Incidentally,
they all seem to come from Berkeley. So you can conclude that
all major contributions come from Berkeley and industry.
\_ Stanford is usually given equal credit with UCB
for RISC (look at Patterson & Hennssey for example)
\_ I would concur that the Berkeley <-> Silicon Valley has
created the Academic-Industrial Complex.
\_ RISC? RAID? 754? Hardly as important as UNIX. Nice but
trivially obvious and would have been done by someone, some
where in due time.
\_ Two other contributions of industry include OpenFirmware
and FireWire. I don't think that academics ever came up
with ideas like those. But at the same time, X windows
was quite a good idea from academia. Sun would have saddled
us with news or openlook or some other stupid interface.
\_ Uh, I think most people agree that the X architecture
is ... well broken.
\_ NeWS was a much better architecture, but X was open
source, so it won unfortunately.
\_ RIDE BIKE! wins again for no particular
reason. One day the 'best' software will
win. Not the most politically correct.
\_ Not sure I agree. When it came out it was amazingly
overweight and bloated, but by modern standards,
it's fairly svelt, and it's suited to transparent
network redisplay, which I thank X for almost
every day.
\_ Oh, and there was also that stupid visiting prof who
discovered how to matrix multiply in O(n^2.7) instead of
O(n^3) which in many implementations turns out to be
slower anyway but only wacked out math people like ilyas
care about crap like that.
\_ Variations on Strassen's algorithm are pushing on
O(n^2.3) or something like that now. At any rate, while
I am not sure if anyone actually uses Strassen's in
practice, I do know that sometimes a tighter upper bound
on the running time can make all the difference in the
world. Fast Fourier Transforms and Pearl's belief
propagation algorithms come to mind as good examples.
-- ilyas
\_ Strassen's is pointless on today's hardware,
where mults are as cheap as adds. In the past,
\_ aren't multiplies still slightly more expensive
due to the 32 or 64 element carry save adds.
i don't think any digital design allows for
a 64 level deep logic in one clock cycle
for power and performance reasons.
and maybe again in the future, Strassen's
might actually be useful :) -nick
\_ Yawn. Oh, were you saying something?
\_ Shove it, asshole. If you're so ignorant as to
completely disregard the importance of strict
mathematical thinking in CS, go to the industry,
bury yer ass in some QA dept and be a mindless
drone as much as you wish. Otherwise, have a
cookie. -- not ilyas
\_ tell us about the stars
\_ "Do it my way or you're an ignorant QA
drone!!! My way is the only way to the
Purity and the Truth! I am CS Tao!!!"
Oh uhm, were you saying something? I
was distracted by a passing fleck of
something more important than your
opinion. I think it was a bit of pocket
lint floating gently to the floor.
\_ Or Andrew. God forbid!
\_ or Mach and Kerberos.
\_ Do the smart ones go back to academia and GET A FUCKING DICTIONARY
or SPELLCHECKER?! --greedy dummy in industry with SPELLCHECKER |
| 2000/2/11-13 [Computer/Networking, Computer/SW/Security] UID:17494 Activity:very high |
2/11 Why can't they stop all these DoS with a simple TCP source quench? My
understanding is that if the incoming data rate passes a certain
threshold, you can simply ask the the upstream sender to slow down or
drop packets. So why don't the end points just do this so that the
systems don't go down?
\_ But then if that's true and the upstream sender starts dropping
packets, it will still appear the same to the clients that the
server has crashed. The effect is the same. Right? -- yuen
\_ Sort of, my understanding is that you can do a source quench
on one or more source IP's, so when you send a quench the
message propogates all the the way back to the source. When
the router's closest to the source start dropping, it will look
like (from the source's perspective) the destination
has gone away. Other source IP's won't be affected.
\_ Source quench idea doesn't work necessarily because the
idea of source quench assumes that the sending host is
co-operative, not hostile. When the sending host has
been root compromised, the compromise could change the
behavior to make it ignore source quench requests.
Also, a lot of the source IPs are being spoofed, so you
don't even know who the real sources are.
\_ The attacks are a lot more complicated than just "send lots of
packets to yahoo". -tom
\_ So where can I get a description about how these attacks work.
And I'm not looking for the garbage in the general press.
\_ http://www.securityfocus.com
\_ http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/tfn.analysis
\_ http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich
Look in the papers where he analyizes trinoo, tfn and
stracheldaht. Best analysis of them I have seen. -ausman
\_ while (1) { httpget("yahoo.com"); } And now you know!
\_ This is hardly untraceable since your IP will show up
in access_log. My understanding is that the attacks
have been untraceable, so they must involve header
rewritting or session hijack or something.
\_ No. _some one's_ IP appears in the log. Who is to
say httpget() isn't mushing the IP or using a proxy
or doing a million other things?
\_ The problem with DoS attacks is not that they're crashing the
machines, but that they're preventing normal users from accessing
the service. Your suggestion does nothing to change this.
\_ If you or your upstream routers block/quench based on the
sending rate of a source IP, then you could filter the DoS
traffic (high incoming rate) and still allow most normal
users (low incoming rate) to connect. I think that is is a L3
analogy to the hammer filters in some ftp servers.
\_ Except that many of the attacks consist of a low incoming
rate per IP address from thousands of different addresses.
Telling real traffic from attack is harder than you think.
\_ Pull network cable, sell stock, go home.
\_ Wrong order!
\_ You want to sell at the high moments before it
crashes to make sure you soak it for every last bit.
After all, who knows better when it's going down
than you? It'll take a while for others to notice.
\_ I opened a joint broker account with my girlfriend and placed $1000 in
it, telling her that whatever is in it when engagement comes would be
the price of her diamond ring. GE didn't go fast enough for her, so
we went into Checkpoint Software, and it went from $1000 to $4000
in 4 months, and has been going through the roof since the DoS
attacks. Do you think my girlfriend might be involved?
\_ She hired me to do it. I get half the account, she gets
the other half for her ring. Expect it to continue upwards
until you're engaged.
\_ I knew she was involved! I once suggested to her that
instead of a diamond ring, I can give her a super cool
Sun workstation. To my surprise, even though she is a
nerdy (but very beautiful, in my opinion) computer
science student, she didn't like the idea very much.
If you can convince her otherwise, it would be a great
favor for me!
\_ She is much smarter than you think. Diamonds are
forever. Sun workstations become obsolete.
She also realizes that you may in fact wish to
fondle the sun hardware instead of twiddle her bits.
And when the workstation becomes old, Sun allows
you to trade it in for a newer model, perhaps giving
you certain ideas she finds threatening. |
| 2000/2/11-12 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:17495 Activity:nil |
2/11 If i have a smooth function of two variables, and want to turn it into
a nicely rendered 3d picture, what is a good way to do that?
mathematica would get the idea across, but i'd like something that makes
a really nice picture with shading and lighting and such like the STM
images on the IBM site. any suggestions?
\_ http://www.povray.org
\_ dude, that kicks ass! thanks! |
| 2000/2/11 [Uncategorized] UID:17496 Activity:nil 66%like:18076 |
2/11 Have a troll, cookie. |
| 3/15 |