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

[yllus]

Originally posted by: cchen
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.

No. The course is 'Advanced Programming Techniques'. However, it's being taught in the manner of, "Here is a really easy assignment that will only take you a while to do because I'm going to be intentionally vague about the commands and syntax you need to write the script in Unix." Making students root through man pages or textbooks for such information is not providing what I would deem an acceptable university-level education.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: cchen
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.

No. The course is 'Advanced Programming Techniques'. However, it's being taught in the manner of, "Here is a really easy assignment that will only take you a while to do because I'm going to be intentionally vague about the commands and syntax you need to write the script in Unix." Making students root through man pages or textbooks for such information is not providing what I would deem an acceptable university-level education.

The philosophy of Unix makes it tough to teach. There are many ways to do everything. Trying to teach people how to do things gets complicated. You can either restrict them to knowing one way to do things, or you have to spend a lot of time going over various ways to do simple things.

EDIT: Oh, and if you can't do research by the time you reach college, you'd going to have a lot of problems.

 

[virtuamike]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: cchen
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.

No. The course is 'Advanced Programming Techniques'. However, it's being taught in the manner of, "Here is a really easy assignment that will only take you a while to do because I'm going to be intentionally vague about the commands and syntax you need to write the script in Unix." Making students root through man pages or textbooks for such information is not providing what I would deem an acceptable university-level education.

When was the last time you got a programming project that actually listed out all the commands and syntax that you'd be using?

 

[Deeko]

Alright, a couple of points.

We are doing shell scripting and whatnot because like I said, the class used to be simply a unix class, then they decided to add perl and java, and thus now call it APT.
I don't expect them to spell out EVERYTHING in lecture....but they really don't tell you anything. Its ridiculous. The assignments are based on new commands we didn't even hear existed in lecture. And if you ask for help on how to use it, you aren't told anything. We really need more help than we get.

If it makes you naysayers who are disagreeing with me, after about 7 hours, I finished the assignment, along with all the extra credit. The only thing I couldn't do was the goddamn file command....I really could not figure out how to make it display the extension of a file. I ended up getting the results the script needed through another method...a much more inefficient method, but hell it works.

I spent as much time on the extra credit problem as I did on that damn file command, but I wasn't getting as aggrevated. The extra credit was to have a file as a command line argument, as well as an unspecified number of terms to search(grep) the file for. You were to find what lines contained all of them, in no particular order. It required a recursive call to the script...it took me awhile to get it working right, but because it was actually solving a programming problem and not mindlessly googling commands, it was actually a good time.

Thus, I stand by my case.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Alright, a couple of points.

We are doing shell scripting and whatnot because like I said, the class used to be simply a unix class, then they decided to add perl and java, and thus now call it APT.
I don't expect them to spell out EVERYTHING in lecture....but they really don't tell you anything. Its ridiculous. The assignments are based on new commands we didn't even hear existed in lecture. And if you ask for help on how to use it, you aren't told anything. We really need more help than we get.

That's barely a taste of the real world. Just so you know, that's how things work.

If it makes you naysayers who are disagreeing with me, after about 7 hours, I finished the assignment, along with all the extra credit. The only thing I couldn't do was the goddamn file command....I really could not figure out how to make it display the extension of a file. I ended up getting the results the script needed through another method...a much more inefficient method, but hell it works.

I just glanced at the man pages for 2 different files. Neither of them mention extension. It sounds like you misunderstood something.

I spent as much time on the extra credit problem as I did on that damn file command, but I wasn't getting as aggrevated. The extra credit was to have a file as a command line argument, as well as an unspecified number of terms to search(grep) the file for. You were to find what lines contained all of them, in no particular order. It required a recursive call to the script...it took me awhile to get it working right, but because it was actually solving a programming problem and not mindlessly googling commands, it was actually a good time.

Thus, I stand by my case.

Research, it does a body good.

 

[Deeko]

You're missing the point. This isn't my job, this is my class. They are supposed to be teaching me.

Don't believe me that extension is a command of file?
http://www.simpsons-quotes.com/ssfile.jpg

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Deeko
You're missing the point. This isn't my job, this is my class. They are supposed to be teaching me.

And part of the purpose of college is to teach you how to work. Prepare you for the real world, where generally have to work.

Don't believe me that extension is a command of file?
http://www.simpsons-quotes.com/ssfile.jpg

It wasn't that I didn't believe you. I just said I couldn't find anything about it. The program is different between *nixes, and I only have access to a limited number of them.

RedHat, Solaris, and OpenBSD don't have that section in the man page. But it looks like you can type something along the lines of: file jpg file.jpg and it should return file.

 

[torpid]

This class sounds like it has little applicability to the real world. Searching through man pages to learn an OS might be similar to the real world. In the real world, though, if you are the sole programmer who is intructed to immediately learn a new technology and write something in it, then it's time to get a job that doesn't involve working for your neighbor's company in his garage. Usually you'll have a mentor or some "lead" who can help you with questions. Usually you'll be provided resources such as books etc. Usually you'd have more formal documentation.

The sink or swim mentality is the exact reason why terms like "cowboy programmer" exist, and by the way that's a BAD thing to be labelled, not a good thing. Programming classes should foster working in a team environment with structured design phases, requirements documents, etc. They shouldn't be teaching you how to read documentation beyond the first couple of classes. If a university is still teaching you how to read documentation in the late stages of a degree, you're going to be sorely disappointed at how little you actually learned.

 

[mAdD INDIAN]

Originally posted by: Ornery
"I'm paying $1500 to be given assignments and teach myself how to do them on google."

There's the part that would send me off. Any way to make her answer to somebody for that?

that's 80% of all the classes in University man. I dunno how it was back in teh day, but now you pay money to others to just grade you. You do all the learning yourself.

 

[xboxist]

.

 

[bleeb]

Originally posted by: Heisenberg

unix = WORST OS EVER

Err...no. You just haven't learned how to use it yet. The learning curve is much steeper than the pretty point-and-click GUI OS's, but it's far more powerful.

I agree... thats why Microsoft still uses UNIX servers for there mission critical stuff... I think (not sure).

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Deeko
You're missing the point. This isn't my job, this is my class. They are supposed to be teaching me.

And part of the purpose of college is to teach you how to work. Prepare you for the real world, where generally have to work.

Don't believe me that extension is a command of file?
http://www.simpsons-quotes.com/ssfile.jpg

It wasn't that I didn't believe you. I just said I couldn't find anything about it. The program is different between *nixes, and I only have access to a limited number of them.

RedHat, Solaris, and OpenBSD don't have that section in the man page. But it looks like you can type something along the lines of: file jpg file.jpg and it should return file.

see i told you man pages suck. puppy dog ownz! :laugh:

 

[Deeko]

n0cmonkey, it is supposed to return the extension of the file...and it doesn't work.

Say for example I type file extension filename.ext
according to the man page, that is proper syntax. There are about 50 other 'commands' such as extension, and none of them work. When you do that, it looks for the files "extension" and "filename.ext"

 

[Wahsapa]

today slashdot had an article with a link to some unix history, heres the link since this is a unix thread http://economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2724348 its a good read for sure

 

[imported_vr6]

In my experience thats is basically all programming courses. Heck even at my internship i learn everything through documentation, books, and google.

They tell you what they want as the result/output, and you figure out the rest. It gets frustrating at times, but there are no better ways to learn the stuff.

I had to program in Ada, a language never even heard of by my classmates. I learned it all through the reference manuel and google.

I am not a CS major, just MIS, who are required to take alot less programming courses then your typical CS-er, but i feel your pain. You have everyright to complain.

edit-mondays are bad for spelling..

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: mAdD INDIAN

Originally posted by: Ornery
"I'm paying $1500 to be given assignments and teach myself how to do them on google."

There's the part that would send me off. Any way to make her answer to somebody for that?

that's 80% of all the classes in University man. I dunno how it was back in teh day, but now you pay money to others to just grade you. You do all the learning yourself.

How much does it cost to just "test out" of that BS? Might as well go that route, if it's even 20% cheaper!

 

[slpaulson]

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

I sure am.

 

[Gnurb]

Get a shell scripting book from O'Reilly. I'd link to one but you didn't say what shell you were using.. I've gone through a korn shell book of a coworkers and it was pretty helpful.

 

[Childs]

Originally posted by: 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.

 

[zephyrprime]

Making students root through man pages or textbooks for such information is not providing what I would deem an acceptable university-level education.

Yeah, but that's what college is like. College is a big ripoff but there's nothing us pleons can do about it.

By the way Deeko, don't rely on the Man pages to learn anything. They're only for reference if you forget something or are familiar with how Unix programs generally work. To learn Unix and do Unix assignments, you're gonna need to buy a nice Unix book.

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

Yeah, here curriculum is wrongheaded.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Deeko
You're missing the point. This isn't my job, this is my class. They are supposed to be teaching me.

Don't believe me that extension is a command of file?
http://www.simpsons-quotes.com/ssfile.jpg

What OS are you using? I've seen a file command that did that. I tend to avoid the shell, so I'd use perl, where it's easier to use regular expressions:

ls *.jpg | perl -pe 's/^.*\.(.*?$)/\1/'

 

[nd]

The "file" manpage you're looking at is the manpage for the TCL command 'file', not for the standard UNIX tool 'file'.

 

[BurnItDwn]

bah, *nix is great.

Windows is fine for a home gaming/pron viewing box, but for anything criticaly important for a network (ie, DB server, web server, mail server, DNS server, firewall, file server, etc), I'm not going to run Windows

it's efficient, stable, low maintenance, and very productive What could possibly be better?. (my personal favorite seems to be Slackware these days ... though I've only really used (at home) Redhat 6.x & 7.x, Mandrake 8.x & 9.x, FreeBSD 4.4, Slackware 9.1, Dos, MacOS 8.x and all the various Windows versions up to XP. At work most of the servers I support run SCO 5.1 or 5.07 (about 4500 of them). I am not too big a fan of SCO. We have some AIX boxes, and a couple OpenBSD boxes, as well as some Dynix boxes (though I don't know jack about it), and a handfull of Redhat boxes too.



On the plus side, I guess if there was no *nix, there would be a LOT more IT jobs due to all the shortcomings of the windows OSes. They would need to upgrade much more often, they would need their servers fixed much more often, and they would need to restore servers from backups more often since Windows tends to be quite exploitable and eager to invite virii/worms/ and trojans.



edit. My spelling is terrible.

Also ... on the topic .... it sounds like your teacher is doing a very poor job. It's impossible to cover everything in a short period of time, but they should really get you started off with the basic commands first, and then also help students when they have questions. I am sorry you have such a horrible teacher. I know *nix can be kinda overwhelming at first ... though it tends to grow on you with time.

 

cchen and descartes are two of the most elitest assholes I've seen on here to date.

 

[mAdD INDIAN]

Originally posted by: Ornery

Originally posted by: mAdD INDIAN

Originally posted by: Ornery
"I'm paying $1500 to be given assignments and teach myself how to do them on google."

There's the part that would send me off. Any way to make her answer to somebody for that?

that's 80% of all the classes in University man. I dunno how it was back in teh day, but now you pay money to others to just grade you. You do all the learning yourself.

How much does it cost to just "test out" of that BS? Might as well go that route, if it's even 20% cheaper!

I don't follow?