Date : Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:52:52 +0100
From : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [OT] No wonder CompSci graduates are unemployed
On 09/11/2010 15:03, J.G.Harston wrote:
> Yes, programming *is* easy, if you have the innate skill and aptitude
> to do it. [...]
> - Yes, but I was expecting somebody to actually provide me with the
> actual email client code, not something I have to work on myself.
I think this is the crux of the matter. It isn't really a question of
whether or not the people are good or bad at programming in whatever is
the faddy language of choice - but rather it is that people seem to be
less and less able to think in terms of attacking a problem by breaking
it into manageable logical chunks. As in your example, if you read the
RFCs to understand how email "works", and have "sample telnet, web,
generic client/server programs" to see how the communications behave in
practice, all you really need to do yourself is a database of sorts for
managing the messages, a parser to extract the messages, the user
interface bits, and some glue code to the network handling side of
things. It is very complicated to write a *modern* email client, like
dealing with oddities and anomolies (such as that Base64 message I
posted about a few weeks back, not to mention SSL/TLS etc), but to write
a simple plain text POP3/SMTP email client? Piece of cake. I wrote the
(working) beginnings of one for RISC OS, and may well have been able to
get a working version for the Beeb as well (see, this isn't off-topic,
not really ;-) ).
Problem is, unless you have the mindset of *understanding* how to
comprehend the problem, you'll be a zero no matter what language or
courses you go on...
...so, the question is, is this a fault with CS professors (some of
which, admittedly, are hopeless) or is this a fault of the education
system in general?
Best wishes,
Rick.
--
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...