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) |
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