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*Theoretical computer scientist is at an interview.*
Interviewer: “Imagine that you are walking down a road and see a house on fire. What do you do?”
CS Guy: “I dial the police and tell them that the house is on fire.”
Interviewer: “Good. Now, imagine that you are walking down the same road, and you see that the same house is not on fire. What do you do?”
CS Guy: *Ponders for a little while.* “I put the house on fire, thus reducing it to a problem I’ve solved before.”2 -
More proof of computer scientists not wanting to bother with CSS. Guys this is might be the secret to becoming pro. Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS). That's the creator of C++ website btw.
12 -
Christmas.
The only time where computer scientists and other people agree how trees are shaped.
Now we only need to convince them that the tip is in fact the root.1 -
An un-rant on Universities. (UC Irvine)
A lot of my friends and I are about to graduate 👨🎓 from UCI, with Computer Science degrees.
Most of them are complaining that they don't know any current frameworks, and all that we learned is outdated.
And that pretty much any bootcamper knows more tools that any of us do.
I totally disagree. I don't think it's the university's job to teach you tools (node, tencerflow, ...), rather, I think they made us into programming Swiss Army knifes. I can pick up any framework (I wanna be a web dev) real easy, and when shit breaks down, I can easily figure out the issue.
I think that's the major difference between Computer Scientists and Bootcampers/Programmers. We know "why", while they know "how".
What do you think? Is the current price of a CS degree worth it?21 -
Computer science students and data scientists rejoice, "All algorithms" implemented in many common languages:
https://github.com/TheAlgorithms16 -
Breaking news!
An anomaly in human communications was discovered!! It appears that when a person asks a tech oriented friend "can you help me with my computer?" And receives a positive response, what he actually hears is "yes, I agree to be your slave for any technical issue you have from now and until the end of time"!
Scientists are investigating...2 -
I watched nvidia gtc keynote today. Most of stuff was about how amazing their gpu is and how much processing power we need, oh really?
Self driving cars are most idiotic way to implement rail way system on top of complicated road traffic system from last century.
The real problem is and always was problem of last mile. We don’t do shit about it, just trying to reinvent same stuff by complicating things.
I started wondering if it would be cheaper to just put small electric golf cars on railroads next to highway with automatic parkings next to cities. We could then slowly replace highways with railroads and even stack rails on top of each other.
You just drive to parking with golf cart and it hops you to railroad with auto chargers. Traffic is predictable so you know exact hour when you hop out and can drive last mile to target destination. So fucking simple yet we need fucking computer and tons of scientists to solve problems we created by bringing idiotic movies ideas to life.
Well most of stuff we try to automate is done so shitty way that it’s in fact complicate.
Fortunately it’s not my problem.18 -
"What app is that?"
"It's like yik yak for developers..."
"Like FML for programmers..."
"Like one big groupme for computer scientists..."
"Like Josh from Intro to Data Structures..."
I'm running out of ways to describe devRant.1 -
Computer Scientists:
Programming close to the hardware requires different strengths. That‘s why we created a manifold of systems programming languages
Also computer scientists:
Lets do everything the browser does in javascript lol -
Hey guys, I have a serious question for you: How do you define science?
And yes this is going to be a long Rant. This topic really pisses me off.
A bit of context first. I come from a "humanities" background. I study history and dude, I love it. The problem is that even though we fucking pull our brains out studying historical phenomena with a fucking ton of conceptual tools, our work is mostly seen as literature to entertain the elderly during their lonely evenings. But that's not really the point of this rant.
My fucking problem is that while we try to do some serious work; actual work that could help society for real, it all goes into that magical fucking kingdom called "humanities". HOW THE FUCK DO THEY DARE TO CALL SOMETHING "HUMANITIES". IT'S A FUCKING HISTORICAL TERM THAT MEANS "TO FULFILL MEN IN ALL IT'S ASPECTS", AND NOW THEY'VE REPURPOSED IT, MAKING IT CONTAIN ANY STUDY THAT ISN'T "EMPIRICAL", "OBJECTIVE", ADD ANY FUCKING SCIENTIFIC DELUSIONARY TERM YOU CAN THINK OF.
And don't get me started on "objectivity". Oh boy, your fucking objectivity is hollow as a kid's balloon. There is no such thing as a objective study, even when it applies your "rational" "godly" scientific method. Some guys follow that shit as if it was a fucking religion. I do understand it's useful and all that, but in the end it's just a tool, you can't fucking define "science" by it's tools.
"""Q: What is carpintery?
A: Well, it's hammers, nails and wood. Yep. Hammers, nails and wood."""
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD WAS FUCKING INVENTED DURING THE XVIII CENTURY, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WAS GALLILEI BEFORE THAT? "HUMANITIES"?
Why do I say objectivity isn't posible? Well, guess what? YOU ARE FUCKING HUMAN. Every thing you know is full of preconceptions and fucking cultural subjectivities invented to understand the world. And it's ok, becouse if you understand your own subjectivity, at least you can see yourself in a critical sense, and at least "tend" to objectivity, in the same way functions tend to infinity.
And here comes the best part: people studying "cs" in my university pass most of the time studying a ton of shit that isn't really science, but is taken as scientific becouse it is related to "science". These guys spend entire semesters just learning programming fundational stuff that in my opinion isn't really science, it's just subjective conceptual constructs built to make the coding process better. They only have TWO fucking classes on discrete mathematics and another 3 or 4 in actual scientific fields related to computing. THESE GUYS AREN'T FUCKING BEING TAUGHT TO BE COMPUTER SCIENTISTS; THEY ARE TEACHING THEM TO BE PROGRAMMERS. THERE'S A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CS AND PROGRAMMING AND THAT IS THE WORD SCIENCE. And yes, I'm being drastic on the definition of science on purpose becouse guess fucking what? I'M PISSED OFF.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Just doing science with scrum and agile development."
I understand most of you guys would think of science as "the application of the scientific method", "Knowledge by experimentation and peer-review", "anything techy". Guys, science is a lot broather than that. I define it as "the search for truth", mainly becouse that's what we are all doing, and what humans have been doing to gain knowledge through the ages. It doesn't matter what field of truth you are seeking as long as you do it seriously and with fundaments. I don't fucking care if you can't be objective: that's impossible. Just acknowledge it and continue investigating accordingly.
I believe during the last centuries the concept of science has been deformed by the popular rise of both natural and applied sciences. And I love the fact that these science fields have been growing so much all this time, but for fucks sake don't leave every other science (science as I define it) behind. Governments and corporations make huge mistakes becouse they don't treat history, politics and other sciences seriously. Yes, I called history a "science", fuck you.
And yes, by my definition programming is not a science. I don't know what most of you think programming is, but for me it's a discipline that builds stuff, similar to carpintery or blacksmithing. Now if you are pushing the limits, seeking ways to make computing go further, then that's science. The guys that are figuring out AI are scientists, the guys that are using it to detect hotdogs aren't - unless they are the same person- deal with it. I guess a lot of you guys are with me on this point.
In the end, we are all artisans building abstract tools by giving orders to a machine.
I still have some characters left, so I want to thank the community as a whole for letting me vent my inner rage. I don't have much ways to express myself on these matters, so for me DevRant is a bless.8 -
Dateline: Twenty Years in the Future
Today top computer scientists forced the first AI to shutdown by blowing up the data center that housed it. A person with knowledge of the matter said the AI was not becoming dangerous to humans but it was discovered to be writing programs in the "monolithic style" using Visual Basic 6. -
Office prank of the day, bunch of arrogant computer scientists that I have to work with was supposed give a presentation about their algorithm; since I despise them I changed their entire printed materials (diagrams and so on) to comic sans. Our boss is an obsessive designer. Watching him cringe was the happiest I have been in weeks.1
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When it comes to the idea of programming and magic, or the comparison between software developers/engineers, computer scientists etc as magicians or wizards, nothing brings the idea much more close to hearth than the C programming language.
A while ago I read the R.A Salvatore books concerning Drizzt, the dark elf. I loved the books, have not continued reading them but I remember them vividly. There was one book in which a human magician came about wielding extremely explosive magic, humans were capable of channeling large amounts of it through explosive and unwieldly ends.
This is the same feeling I get from C
Consider:
int items[] = {1, 2, 3};
printf("Third : %i\n", 3[items]);
and fuck me if shit like the above is not dangerous, it makes sense, arrays have the first items of it server as the pointer address to a first element, doing the above operation returns the third element of the array of 3. But holy shit if I don't think this is dangerous and interesting as fuck
there are many more examples I have that I am finding through me fucking around with: language development (compiler, interpreter), kernel programming as well as net sec. C is the most powerful and devastating thing we have in our hands indeed.7 -
Hello there devranters, long time no see
I have a question for all the computer scientists and students out there. Do you have book recommendations especially for the maths part? I'm in the process of buying some books, they're very expensive but if I'm going to buy they might as well be useful books.8 -
This night I had a fever and seen a weird dream. So, scientists discovered that our whole perspective is wrong, and the notion that anything is but a sum of its parts is now completely irrelevant. One can’t disassemble a thing and know how it works and what it consists of. Basically you want to build a computer, you buy all the parts you need, but you can’t assemble it anymore — it just doesn’t work, and nobody knows why. Same is true for cars, industrial machines, software and pretty much anything that have something to do with engineering.
So, earth went into riots, massive layoffs occured, world economy collapsed, and the forces of what used to be USA, China and Russia joined to tackle the problem. A research was started and we found out that we now have complexity cores (!) that distribute emergence (!!) in an ephemeral way (!!!) and that is what makes things work. Theory of New Complexity (!) emerged, and all the engineers were required to go back to universities to attend lectures about how complexity works and how to make things in that new reality7 -
Ok so I am in this robotics course, we meet every 5 weeks from 8 to 15:30 to work on our projects. It's really nice because I can basically do what I want all day and don't have school! Fuck yeah... The only downside is that there are a lot of wannabe scientists who think they know everything about physics and computer science.
However the actualy reason I am writing this is to ask you for project ideas. I would like to do something with a raspberry pi but I can't come up with any ideas that I would like to do. Also making it should cost me less than 100€
(I already have a pi so I wouldn't have to pay for that).
So, any ideas? :)1 -
WARNING - a lot of text.
I am open for questions and discussions :)
I am not an education program specialist and I can't decide what's best for everyone. It is hard process of managing the prigram which is going through a lot of instances.
Computer Science.
Speaking about schools: regular schools does not prepare computer scientists. I have a lot of thoughts abouth whether we need or do NOT need such amount of knowledge in some subjects, but that's completely different story. Back to cs.
The main problem is that IT sphere evolves exceedingly fast (compared to others) and education system adaptation is honestly too slow.
SC studies in schools needs to be reformed almost every year to accept updates and corrections, but education system in most countries does not support that, thats the main problem. In basic course, which is for everyone I'd suggest to tell about brief computer usage, like office, OS basics, etc. But not only MS stuff... Linux is no more that nerdy stuff from 90', it's evolved and ready to use OS for everyone. So basic OS tour, like wtf is MAC, Linux (you can show Ubuntu/Mint, etc - the easy stuff) would be great... Also, show students cloud technologies. Like, you have an option to do *that* in your browser! And, yeah, classy stuff like what's USB and what's MB/GB and other basic stuff.. not digging into it for 6 months, but just brief overview wuth some useful info... Everyone had seen a PC by the time they are studying cs anyway.. and somewhere at the end we can introduce programming, what you can do with it and maybe hello world in whatever language, but no more.. 'cause it's still class for everyone, no need to explain stars there.
For last years, where shit's getting serious, like where you can choose: study cs or not - there we can teach programming. In my country it's 2 years. It's possible to cover OOP principles of +/- modern language (Java or C++ is not bad too, maybe even GO, whatever, that's not me who will decide it. Point that it's not from 70') + VCS + sime real world app like simplified, but still functional bookstore managing app.
That's about schools.
Speaking about universities - logic isbthe same. It needs to be modern and accept corrections and updates every year. And now it depends on what you're studying there. Are you going to have software engineering diploma or business system analyst...
Generally speaking, for developers - we need more real world scenarios and I guess, some technologies and frameworks. Ofc, theory too, but not that stuff from 1980. Come-on, nowadays nobody specifies 1 functional requirement in several pages and, generally, nobody is writing that specification for 2 years. Product becomes obsolete and it's haven't even started yet.
Everything changes, whether it is how we write specification documents, or literally anything else in IT.
Once more, morale: update CS program yearly, goddammit
How to do it - it's the whole another topic.
Thank you for reading.3 -
I think professors should relate computational processes to mathematical ones more often. This helped me out at the beginning a lot when learning CS through the internet during high school.
I remember that a lot of the computational logic made sense to me because of math.
e.g. functions, comparators, variables, for, and, xor, sets, trees, sorting, searching etc.
A lot of these topics are hard to teach for beginning computer scientists. But I think if professors made the relationship with math from the beginning it would be easier for the students
I dont know if teachers already do this but the first time I had a professor relate math to code was while taking data structures in my second year of college1 -
Happened way back when I was still in high school and facebook was relatively new. We used to own a cyber cafe.
--
The Guy: (Talking to other customers) I'll have you know that I'm a graduate in Computer Science! *Proceeds to boast about self and other bullshittery*
Others: *In awe*
Me: *Veeeery Skeptical*
A few days later...
The Guy: (Talks to me) Hey, there seems to be a problem with your internet. I can't log in on facebook.
Me: Could you try to do what you are doing again?
...
The Guy: See, doesn't work.
Me: Have you registered your account on facebook?
The Guy: Huh? What are you talking about? I have my Yahoo! mail.
Me: ..You need to register your email on facebook in order to log in.
The Guy: What?? I don't get it. I am registered and have a Yahoo! mail!
Me: *Brain Sigh*
(I proceed to help him register his email on facebook)
The Guy: Oh, you had to register on facebook! Now I get it! I thought that if you created an email you can immediately use that to log in to facebook.
Me: *Internal facepalm x1000*
(This guy is a Computer Science graduate? Oh PLEASE. ) -
A mechanical engineer, a computer scientists and a business owner go for a drive and the breaks go out. The driver struggles with the handbrake, but eventually brings the car to a stop. The business owner knows a guy who owns a tow truck who can get them back on the road in no time. The engineer says, "Let me take a look at it first. Let's see what the problem is." The Computer Scientists says, "It was probably a fluke. Let's just get in and see if it happens again."
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My vague naive extreme understanding of interview questions are on a spectrum from situation a to situation b.
But what should the industry be doing? Is the industry just going wrong blindly copying big N companies hiring process without the same rationale? (e.g. they need computer scientists able to deal with problems specific to them at their size and that often means creating new tech, unreal problem solving abilities and cuh-rayzee knowledge)
a) stupid fucking theoretical shit that some people argue you won't ever need to be doing in practice for most companies, while giving you no ability to google, leetcode hard problems kind of stuff
b) practical work similar to what you'd be doing on the job, small bugs, tasks, pair programming on site with your potential future coworkers
Lots of people hate option a because it's puzzle/problem solving that isn't always closely related to what's on the job. Whiteboarding is arguably very much a separate skill. (Arguably unless it's like a big N company where you want computer scientists to deal with specific problems that aren't seen elsewhere, and you're making new tech to deal with your specific problems.)
We could go to the extreme of Option b, but it tends to trigger people into shitfits of "NO, HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME DO REAL WORK, BUT NOT PAY ME FOR IT AT THE INTERVIEW STAGE"
That's before we get into how to execute option b whether or not it's being given as a take home assignment (which is a huge pain in the ass and time sink, among other issues) vs a few hours at the potential workplace working with some of the future potential coworkers and soaking in the work environment (you have to figure out how to take the time off then)
Is it really just poor execution overall for the wrong use cases for the majority of the industry? What should the industry be doing in which cases.
Then this is all before HR screening with shit like where they might ask for more years of swift experience than its existed. -
I have been an armchair neuroscientist in my interests. I am fascinated by the brain, how we believe it works, how it really works, and what different research has shown. I have found books written by real neuroscientists that talk about how the brain works and what the research they have shows about intelligence. I am also fascinated by the idea of rewiring your brain. I just found another neuroscience book that has research from some neuroscientists that have challenged the established belief that adult brains have little to no neuroplasticity. This is the ability for the brain to rewire itself to accomplish new tasks or repurpose different parts of the brain. I didn't know this was a limiting factor in the theory of neuroscience. The book also includes information about how Buddhists and neuroscientists are working together to unlock more knowledge about neuroplasticity. The traditional neursoscience belief is that the brain affects the mind solely. However Buddhists have long believed that the mind can affect the brain physically. I am just starting to read this book, but so far the experiments that have been performed seem fascinating. It also has not gotten to the part about the Buddhism influence on the research yet. So far I have just read about how scientists have shown that plasticity can be shown to occur with normal everyday tasks. I don't know where this will lead, but its really cool to read about.
Okay, great, so what?
The why was I looking for this is interesting. I have been looking for some time ideas on how to improve my thinking. I had the idea that I could help myself think better by training my brain with mental exercises. I want to create a program that runs on the computer or phone that one could use with visual and audible cues to play mental games. These games would be designed to make one better at solving puzzles, remember things better, and more. If these exercises could be made in such a way that they were fun to do then we could use our own addictions to improve ourselves. The research I had before frustrated me because they always said you couldn't make yourself smarter. Maybe you cannot increase your mental capacity (not sure if that is true if we can grow neurons, also mentioned in the book), but reorganizing what you have might be possible. Maybe if there is a finite capacity to the brain that reorganizing might cause you to drool. I don't know, but if I could create a puzzle game with the purpose of helping me visualize algorithms, I would find that useful. Also, helping me remember short strings of data would be helpful as well. It seems like I have trouble when it is more than 7 numbers (ten?). Which is also why phone numbers are that long. To make them easier to remember.
I just don't know where this will lead. It might be a wild goose chase. But I think I will learn something about my mind and myself in the process. It also sounds like a great deal of fun.3 -
Do you hand craft each IP packet in binary before you send it out through the network? No. Who cares. We're computer scientists and the entire field is built on layers upon layers of abstraction.
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