I can't take this programming class much longer....

[Ornery]

"What happened to being self-sufficient? What happened to libraries?"

If I was "learning" from Anand, Phil Askey, or even Tom Pabst, I'd expect to do 99% of the self teaching. But, with $1,500 out of pocket, she's damn well going to do some work on my behalf, or at least explain why not to somebody!

 

[brigden]

You need John Titor.

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: brigden
You need John Titor.

Back to the future guy?

 

[ghostman]

Others have said it, but it's important enough for me to repeat: This has nothing to do with Unix!

This might be one of the most practical courses you'll ever find. Jesus. I hate how all these CS students want the teachers to give you step-by-step instructions on how to do something. In my programming class, we started projects in C# without knowing anything about .NET or C#. Many times, we had to check other resources (other than MSDN) to find the answer. If the teacher had told us the answer, we wouldn't have learned nearly as much. You want to move on to Java, which you already know. Great way to learn! Whine all you want, but in the end, it's just your laziness that makes you not like this class.

Education in this country sucks? Get real.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: Ornery
"What happened to being self-sufficient? What happened to libraries?"

If I was "learning" from Anand, Phil Askey, or even Tom Pabst, I'd expect to do 99% of the self teaching. But, with $1,500 out of pocket, she's damn well going to do some work on my behalf, or at least explain why not to somebody!

You pay for someone to show you the answer, not bloody tell you. If you want the entire solution to a problem when asking a question, why bother asking? It's entirely superfluous if part of the assignment is not to figure out the answers. That seems obvious enough.

What's next, the teacher didn't tell you how to organize the code so that it produces the correct result? I'm sorry, but every since I've been in this industry I've seen nothing but an overwhelming number of programmers who haven't the slightest ability to solve their own problems. They seem so used to simply getting answers that they haven't the knowledge to derive their own.

 

[esun]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: esun
It's funny some of you guys are comparing this class to a job. The idea of a class for you to learn; the idea of a job is for you to perform. Obviously, if the teacher is not teaching, learning is not going to happen by itself. That's why we have school in the first place. Heck, if what some of you are saying is true, then everyone should just stop attending school after learning how to use Google (maybe age 10 or so) and learn everything else independently. One of the reasons education in this country sucks is because people have such low expectations of teachers, allowing them to get away with stuff like this.

You might very well be right, but that's not with what I am personally taking issue. It's sad for someone to just throw their hands up and say something sucks because of a deficiency ostensibly not of their own. It seems so many people can't simply learn something on their own; they have to have someone pontificate for a few months for them to grasp it, and then they only do so if they explain absolutely everything. What happened to being self-sufficient? What happened to libraries? If your teacher isn't explaining things, then supplement. If the textbooks they used are not explained in a manner that is lucid to you, then supplement.

You say it's sad when teachers can't explain the minutiae of everything; I say it's sad when students can't be expected to learn anything on their own.

I consider both sad circumstances. However, I believe the OP went to reasonable lengths to try to learn the information independently. I obviously can't speak for the rest of his class, but it seems that it is more likely in this scenario that the teacher is deficient that the student. Of course, perhaps the OP hasn't gone to the teacher's office hours, or is really just stupid, and deserves to be chided. Maybe both are deficient. Who knows?

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: ghostman
Others have said it, but it's important enough for me to repeat: This has nothing to do with Unix!

This might be one of the most practical courses you'll ever find. Jesus. I hate how all these CS students want the teachers to give you step-by-step instructions on how to do something. In my programming class, we started projects in C# without knowing anything about .NET or C#. Many times, we had to check other resources (other than MSDN) to find the answer. If the teacher had told us the answer, we wouldn't have learned nearly as much. You want to move on to Java, which you already know. Great way to learn! Whine all you want, but in the end, it's just your laziness that makes you not like this class.

Education in this country sucks? Get real.

I don't know about that. Being graded as on the ability to figure out proper commands and syntax isn't what I'd classify as higher education, it's geek hide-and-seek and a scheme to make dollars off of Unix command reference textbooks. Provide the silly commands and mark on program structure and approach to the problem.

Really, what kind of response is "use the man pages"? What learning benefit comes from being forced to do this as opposed to just being instructed on the proper command? We should start with the assumption that university students already know how to read, and thus avoid testing for that...

 

[JetBlack69]

After reading the man pages, ask her specific questions you have about the man pages. She wants you to figure it out for yourself. If she can't answer your question then, you should get upset.

 

[virtuamike]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: ghostman
Others have said it, but it's important enough for me to repeat: This has nothing to do with Unix!

This might be one of the most practical courses you'll ever find. Jesus. I hate how all these CS students want the teachers to give you step-by-step instructions on how to do something. In my programming class, we started projects in C# without knowing anything about .NET or C#. Many times, we had to check other resources (other than MSDN) to find the answer. If the teacher had told us the answer, we wouldn't have learned nearly as much. You want to move on to Java, which you already know. Great way to learn! Whine all you want, but in the end, it's just your laziness that makes you not like this class.

Education in this country sucks? Get real.

I don't know about that. Being graded as on the ability to figure out proper commands and syntax isn't what I'd classify as higher education, it's geek hide-and-seek and a scheme to make dollars off of Unix command reference textbooks. Provide the silly commands and mark on program structure and approach to the problem.

Really, what kind of response is "use the man pages"? What learning benefit comes from being forced to do this as opposed to just being instructed on the proper command? We should start with the assumption that university students already know how to read, and thus avoid testing for that...

The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

 

[Ameesh]

Am I though only one wondering why they are teaching shell scripting in an "Advanced Programming Techniques" Class?

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: Deeko
I'm in an Advanced Programming Techniques class. The first half is unix, then java, the perl. Thank god after the midterm tomorrow this Unix sh!t is over. I could have learned to like Unix...I can assure you this professor had turned me off to it forever. I'm paying $1500 to be given assignments and teach myself how to do them on google. If you ask her how to do anything, all she'll say is "use the man page" which is rarely any help to the unix newb. Look at this latest part of an assignment.

2. Write, as a script, a "safe" delete command. Filenames passed as command-line arguments to this script are not deleted, but instead gzipped if not already compressed (use file to check), then moved to a /home/username/trash directory. At invocation, the script checks the "trash" directory for files older than 48 hours and deletes them.

Ok. Nothing exceedingly difficult here. What's the problem? We never learned that the file command even exists, let alone how to use it. When I read the man page, it says of an "extension" option....well, it doesn't tell you how to use that option, if you type "extension" it looks for a filename with that name. We also never learned how to implement unix commands into a script like that. If it were c++, I would redirect the output to a temp file, read that file and store it in a variable, thus getting my input from the command(this is assuming I knew hew to use the command). How does one do that with a script? Hell if I know.

This is ridiculous. i can't wait till we move on to java which I already know so i don't have to put up with this sh!t anymore.

hahaha n000b

man pages tell you just about everything you need to know about the command. If you know how to use the shell in general, man will tell you everythign you need...

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

Originally posted by: Ameesh
Am I the only one wondering why they are teaching shell scripting in an "Advanced Programming Techniques" Class?

M'fin word. What a misleading class name.

What I legitimately don't like about the Unix world is that this sort of "sink or swim" idea is regular spouted by its community. Like wow, you know 138 more CLI commands than I do. Give me a break. The unfounded elitism can be incredibly irritating.

 

[KK]

What type of stuff do they teach (or supposed) you in these type unix classes? Besides the "man" command of course.

KK

 

[virtuamike]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

If it takes 90% of your time to figure out proper commands and syntax, then you're probably not cut out for programming. In my programming classes we went over too much material to go over syntax.

Am I though only one wondering why they are teaching shell scripting in an "Advanced Programming Techniques" Class?

I was wondering the same thing a page ago.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: virtuamike

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

If it takes 90% of your time to figure out proper commands and syntax, then you're probably not cut out for programming. In my programming classes we went over too much material to go over syntax.

Way to miss the point completely. :roll:

 

[virtuamike]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

If it takes 90% of your time to figure out proper commands and syntax, then you're probably not cut out for programming. In my programming classes we went over too much material to go over syntax.

Way to miss the point completely. :roll:

Thx :roll:

Seriously, how long does it take to open a book and look up syntax? Had plenty of open book midterms / finals because profs didn't expect us to memorize syntax but they did want us to know where to look.

 

[Wahsapa]

if you dont like the class ask for your money back? seriously if you get a teacher that doesnt teach you should just leave the class, and also bring up the fact that the teacher cant teach to the school administrastion.

edit: haha, after reading the whole thread im pretty sure this guy is NOT dumb but that his teacher just doesnt know how to go about teaching unix. she probably has none of the basic undestanding behind unix and so cannot specifically give you help(without reseaching it first, any teacher should be able to automatically go into detail about your assignment, any assignment, without having to resort to 'go read this' and not answering your question)

then theres the other issue: saying unix sucks in the threads title, you know your flaimbait: you know you dont understand unix so you know you cannot have an argument for why it sucks.

all that being said; ask for your money back or complain to the administration. also, go in and ask what certs the teacher has and WHY they are qualified to teach this class, my guessing is they arnt cert'd in anything but how to write a syllabis and give students busy work.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

Originally posted by: Ameesh
Am I the only one wondering why they are teaching shell scripting in an "Advanced Programming Techniques" Class?

M'fin word. What a misleading class name.

What I legitimately don't like about the Unix world is that this sort of "sink or swim" idea is regular spouted by its community. Like wow, you know 138 more CLI commands than I do. Give me a break. The unfounded elitism can be incredibly irritating.

seriously! man pages blow, many times i have found them to be misleading or straight out wrong, i'd rather have the paper clip or that stupid puupy telling me how to run awk or sed then try to make sense out of their man pages.

 

[Zebo]

Wow I've never heard of any CS major not liking UNIX... mac OS, MS OS, Linux yes...but UNIX is like the holy grail to them I thought.

 

[MichaelD]

Sounds like the Windows Server 2003 classes I'm taking right now. :roll: $1,300 per class.

I DID get a full copy of Server 2K3Enterprise w/25 CALs though. :roll:

I'm not reupping after this class (2823) the instructors either quit or get fired a few days into the class, the boxes in the classroom are always busted, etc.

/slits wrist.

 

[ucdnam]

I went to the same school VirtuaMike did, so I may be biased, but I was an ECS (Engineering Computer Science) major for 2 years and took some programming classes along the way. Back then, I didn't know how to learn and found the same problems you did. They gave us huge programming assignments w/o much assistance. Worse, the classes are curved and most people seemed to know the stuff already. Anyway, those who didn't usually either dropped out or figured out how to learn the stuff. We all had the same professors and TAs, so it's not like anyone is at an advantage.

In the end, I figured out that I had to talk to the others and figure out bits and pieces to programs and together, we made it work. You still had to write your own stuff, but we figured the process out.

Oh yea, also tried talking to TAs, but they rarely spoke English.

And lucky for you, you had google. When I was in doing programming courses, google didn't exist and search engines weren't working as well. I still have a pile of C, C++, and even Pascal books here.

Once you learn the basics of any language, you can pick up easily any other. I have some shell scripting books too, that I needed for jobs after I graduated, with a BS in biology

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: ucdnam
I went to the same school VirtuaMike did, so I may be biased, but I was an ECS (Engineering Computer Science) major for 2 years and took some programming classes along the way. Back then, I didn't know how to learn and found the same problems you did. They gave us huge programming assignments w/o much assistance. Worse, the classes are curved and most people seemed to know the stuff already. Anyway, those who didn't usually either dropped out or figured out how to learn the stuff. We all had the same professors and TAs, so it's not like anyone is at an advantage.

In the end, I figured out that I had to talk to the others and figure out bits and pieces to programs and together, we made it work. You still had to write your own stuff, but we figured the process out.

Oh yea, also tried talking to TAs, but they rarely spoke English.

And lucky for you, you had google. When I was in doing programming courses, google didn't exist and search engines weren't working as well. I still have a pile of C, C++, and even Pascal books here.

Once you learn the basics of any language, you can pick up easily any other. I have some shell scripting books too, that I needed for jobs after I graduated, with a BS in biology

I see not much has changed over the years. What really bothers me is that there's a "common thread" here.

The school is being paid good money to TEACH SOMETHING DAMMIT. They are not teaching. They are throwing out bits and pieces and saying "Oh , yeah...test on Wednesday....if you fail, you're out."

Things like ^^ that and forcing people to use alternate means (Google, copying off friends, etc)

That's not teaching. Hell, I can "teach a course in astrophysics" read some BS out of the intro to a book, assign some homework and walk out! :roll: That's what's being done to Deeko AND what's being done to me.

 

[Feldenak]

Heh, I had a C class like that. You could tell the instructor knew what he was doing but he couldn't teach worth a damn. Assigning programs that use concepts he's never covered in lecture or lab before, somewhat belittiling of folks who ask questions, etc...


For those who think I was just seeking the easy way out....I don't expect answers to be handed to me, but in a class, I expect to be given the basic knowledge that allows me to carry out the directed assignments.

 

[cchen]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: virtuamike
The class is "advanced programming techniques", not "OS walkthrough". I think it's a perfectly legitimate assumption to make that university students taking programming classes be computer savvy enough to learn an OS on their own. Sink or swim.

'Advanced Programming Techniques' != 'Spend 90% of your time merely figuring out the proper commands and syntax'. Supply the commands and syntax in lectures, demand application of them in the aforementioned advanced programming techniques. I think that would be very reasonable and much less of a waste of time.

Originally posted by: Ameesh
Am I the only one wondering why they are teaching shell scripting in an "Advanced Programming Techniques" Class?

M'fin word. What a misleading class name.

What I legitimately don't like about the Unix world is that this sort of "sink or swim" idea is regular spouted by its community. Like wow, you know 138 more CLI commands than I do. Give me a break. The unfounded elitism can be incredibly irritating.

GEEZUS. This class isn't about learning the ins and outs of unix... its about using unix as a tool, like you would with any other programming environment.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Deeko
I'm in an Advanced Programming Techniques class. The first half is unix, then java, the perl. Thank god after the midterm tomorrow this Unix sh!t is over. I could have learned to like Unix...I can assure you this professor had turned me off to it forever. I'm paying $1500 to be given assignments and teach myself how to do them on google. If you ask her how to do anything, all she'll say is "use the man page" which is rarely any help to the unix newb. Look at this latest part of an assignment.

The man pages are great. So is apropos, or man -k.

2. Write, as a script, a "safe" delete command.

This isn't programming. I'd be more pissed about that than the teacher. This is scripting, and not even advanced scripting. This is basic stuff.

Filenames passed as command-line arguments to this script

This would be one of the few things that would be a little tough, only because I'd have to look it up.

are not deleted, but instead gzipped if not already compressed (use file to check), then moved to a /home/username/trash directory. At invocation, the script checks the "trash" directory for files older than 48 hours and deletes them.

Pretty basic. Did something like this years ago.

Ok. Nothing exceedingly difficult here. What's the problem? We never learned that the file command even exists, let alone how to use it.

How could you not know of the file command? I use it almost daily.

When I read the man page, it says of an "extension" option....well, it doesn't tell you how to use that option, if you type "extension" it looks for a filename with that name. We also never learned how to implement unix commands into a script like that. If it were c++, I would redirect the output to a temp file, read that file and store it in a variable, thus getting my input from the command(this is assuming I knew hew to use the command). How does one do that with a script? Hell if I know.

VARIABLE_NAME=`command`

Simple.

This is ridiculous. i can't wait till we move on to java which I already know so i don't have to put up with this sh!t anymore.

blah blah blah

Unix is simple.