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Meaningless Rant

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  #1  
Old August 17th, 2002, 10:39 AM
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Meaningless Rant
Ok... to date I have developed for my company:

1) An entire section of their Intranet dynamically served up with perl scripts and a specially formatted database. Searchable.
2) A "maintenance" application to ensure that said database is in the proper "special format" (don't ask).
3) A Search engine for the whole Intranet.
4) A password protection system for the Intranet.
5) Special "add-ons" to MS FP2000 to add / replace many missing / broken "features".
6) Countless "one-shot" scripts.

I have developed on my own for fun / practice:

1) An ad banner manager that allows traditional display, random display, or "auction" display as I called it.
2) A better search engine.
3) Various website management tools.
4) A better password protection system.

So, what is my first class this semester at school? "Basic Microcomputer programming with QBasic" .

Grrrr.... what a waste of tuition. I took Intro to C Programming way back in HS. I haven't used QBasic since I had a PC with Win3.1 on it!
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  #2  
Old August 17th, 2002, 12:56 PM
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lol
=) i wish i knew as much
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  #3  
Old August 17th, 2002, 09:48 PM
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Some schools will let your supervisor vouch for a certain number of credits related to job experience. Maybe you could skip some of the intro stuff?
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Old August 17th, 2002, 11:58 PM
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This is an elective so they won't let me shoot past it to anything that requires it as a prereq. I already skipped a Dreamweaver course, an HTML course, a JavaScript course, and the first two "desktop applications" courses in a different field.
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Old August 18th, 2002, 12:15 AM
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Does anyone even use basic for anything anymore? Other than VB, I mean.
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Old August 18th, 2002, 02:47 PM
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Not that I know of. It's good to use when you're teaching the concepts of variables, statements, program flow, etc. Otherwise, it's pretty pointless I think.
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Old August 19th, 2002, 07:55 AM
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If you look very hard you might still find a few dos applications out there that use QBasic, but most have died out and been replaced by something worth a flip.

I really agree with you Ctb. I hate taking all of the crap classes to get to the good ones.

Honestly, I don't think QBasic is that good at teaching programming concepts. It would be better to start with pascal and just let the old versions of basic die completely.
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Old August 19th, 2002, 02:21 PM
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Personally, I think we should let all versions of Basic die completely, especially those of the "Visual" nature (which this class includes an "introduction" to).

I think it would be nice to have an apptitude test for this sort of class. People who needed to learn from the beginning could start out with Qbasic, Pascal, whatever. I'm not quite to the stage yet where I can pick up a language in a week based on what I know about programming in general, but I'm close (I already picked up most of the concepts of this QBasic junk by looking through the examples in the text). I can only imagine how frustrated the people who CAN learn a language like that must be to have to take a hand-holding class like this. And if you get a prof. who insists on the hand-holding method for EVERYBODY. My gf said she was getting me a Gameboy Pocket for my birthday when she heard I got stuck in this class
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Old August 19th, 2002, 03:08 PM
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Here Here!!!

There are quite a few cheese classes that I had to take:
Intro to Computers
Microcomputer Applications (Office 97)
Microcomputer Operating Systems (how to install windows 3.11 & 95)
Advanced Microcomputer Operating Systems (how to put in a board into a pci slot)
QBasic
Networking Fundamentals (OSI Layer)
All I can say about these is bring a pillow if you are stuck taking these.

I can tell you another thing that is irritating about taking these classes in most colleges. Even when you do get to take the "advanced" classes you have someone who should have taken the beginners class in the advanced class.
I had this happen in three different classes
C++, COBOL and VB. Each of these classes I had at least one person who didn't take the required prerequisite and they were allowed to take the class anyway. They did nothing but slow the class down. That really sux. It is one thing if someone is a little slow in your class, but it is quite another when they shouldn't even be in there in the first place.

You know what gets me about Visual Basic. It is still basic, and what was basic designed for? To teach someone how to program, that is it. It was meant as a beginners language and yet the market is flooded with the crapplications that VB puts out.
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Old August 19th, 2002, 10:03 PM
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Code:
CLS
INPUT "An adjective describing Qbasic "; qBasicAdjective$
IF qBasicAdjective$ = "stupid" THEN
   timeLeftToSleep = 1600
   WHILE timeLeftToSleep > 0
   timeLeftToSleep = timeLeftToSleep - 1
   PRINT "z";
   WEND
ELSE
   PRINT "You're lying!"
END IF
END

QBasic doesn't lend itself to poetry as well as perl I suppose (yea...it'll parse)

We spent the whole class covering the print and cls statements.
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Old August 19th, 2002, 10:21 PM
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Sounds like a tough class.
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  #12  
Old August 21st, 2002, 06:22 PM
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$%@!!$@*%! these stupid classes!

This is the table of contents for my online HTML, WEB220 class:
------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents

1.What is the Internet?
2.Short History of the Internet
3.The Physical Network
4.Protocols
5.Internet Addresses
6.Internet Addresses pt 2
7.Software Tools
8.What is the World Wide Web?
9.Accessing the Web
10.Overview of the Web
-----------------------------------------------
It's the same damn table of contents that was in my Intro, WEB120 class last semester! Shouldn't I already KNOW this stuff for this class??!?!? And if it's an ONLINE course, why the hell does their need to be a section devoted to "Accessing the Web"???

ARGH! I think I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown....

Hey Silky! I'll trade you places (see the "working around the clock post")!
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Old August 21st, 2002, 07:45 PM
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And if it's an ONLINE course, why the hell does their need to be a section devoted to "Accessing the Web"???
if its online shouldn't "Accessing the Web" be taken out altogether? i've also had to take a lot of this crappy classes back in college. and every time i go to one, i just want to take a huge hammer and beat the crap out of the people who made the curriculum.
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Old August 23rd, 2002, 03:54 AM
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Ha. You're lucky. I've got stuff like "What is an operating system?" and "describing and documenting user requirements". A few years ago they had binary addition but they took that out because it was too hard. TOO HARD! There's plenty of reasons not to bother with it but "too hard" isn't one of them.

Think yourself lucky