Friday, October 29, 2010

Real programmers...

...code in Notepad, without Word-wrap
...use only machine code
...have a wallpaper of Linux Shell commands
...have a photo of Turing in their wallet
...do not fear binary trees
...work in C only with malloc()
...regard Prolog as something trivial
...laugh in the face of a Segfault
...fear daylight
...know the entirety of Javadoc by heart
...do not use GOTO statements
...are unfamiliar with the term FOR
...manage to write 5 pages of design & specification by hand, without losing their right-hand motor skills
...know every UNICODE code of every symbol.

That's how we roll...

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Console

Strictly speaking, there comes a time in any student's life when improvement in a certain area is required. In my case, I needed more C# an DB! Below is a brief transcript of what happened during one of the "scarcely numerous" improvement sessions.

A room full of people: 1st year, 2nd year, 3rd year, etc. The projection device turns on; right-click>>open>>the slide-show appears.

MainStudent (09:00 pm): Ok, so how many of you know what a console is?
EntireRoom (09:01 pm): ...
MS (09:05 pm): Oookay... (proceeds to displaying a console on the laptop)

*entire room gasps in awe*

MS (09:06 pm): So this here is a console. Alright, let's move on to more interesting stuff... How many of you know what OOP, UML, MVC, DML and PDF stand for?
ER (09:07 pm): ...
MS (09:15 pm): Mkay, so today we are going to discuss the intricacies of the C# language (tm). This requires that you know all the above and that you have worked with tables before. Anyone here familiar with the notion of Primary Key?

(2-3 hands are raised)

MS (09:20 pm): Excellent! So, what I'm about to do is, create a web app that generates an interface for connecting to the db server using a c# script which, in turn, is embedded in a derivated class. By the end of this tutorial, you will have learned the basics of the C# language (sans tm): classes, polymorphism, accessors, repositories and other cool stuff!

(proceeds to whipping up a relevant example)

MS (11:30 pm): Oookay, so here it is! With this, you can connect to a db via asp.net and have your very own web page! Hurray!

(a slow clap is heard from the room)

MS (11:40 pm): Thank you very much! Next time we will discuss more interesting stuff! But I won't get into details! See you next time!