Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods & headcount... ;

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed Jun 23 17:47:39 2004

On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 22:06, Fred Cisin wrote:
> int N = 10;
> while (N--) printf("&d\n",N);
> What are the first and last numbers displayed?
> is appropriate for open-book.

Hmm, personally I wouldn't want to hire anyone saying they knew a
language if that was typical of the sort of thing they'd been asked in
an exam where they also had the reference material handy! Any student
should be able to say what the result is without having to resort to any
kind of reference.

If trivial programming examples are used as questions, and then a
graduate is hired on the basis of knowing language x then it's a
disaster - they spend much of their time delving into reference books to
do the simplest of things and have no idea about the fundamental
concepts behind programming languages. I've seen it happen all too
often, and testing potential employees at interview time can only catch
so much (aside from being horribly time-consuming and expensive*)

*I remember IBM did graduate interviews over two days - I lost track of
how many technical, logic and aptitude tests we had to do, along with
one-on-one interviews and presentations. Those guys really wanted to
know what they were getting!

> > Then these people go out into the real world and they can't think for
> > shit - as soon as an oddball problem hits them they're just incapable of
> > working it through to a solution as they're too used to just being able
> > to read the answer in a book right when they need it.
>
> Then these people go out into the real world and they can't think for
> shit - as soon as an oddball problem hits them they're just incapable of
> working it through to a solution as they've forgotten everything that
> they memorized.

Historically the industry has moved so fast that you can't teach
application xyz to students though because it'd be obsolete by the time
they graduated. Hence the need to teach concepts and develop
problem-solving skills and the ability to think around any kind of
problem which might crop up (and where a reference that says "if this
happens, do this" will likely not be available).

As an example, I've not touched Ingres since I was at uni, but I've
certainly made use of database skills picked up then. I believe I would
have been worse off had I been in an exam where I had a SQL reference in
front of me, say, because the temptation would be there to rely on the
reference in the exam and forget everything about SQL afterwards.

All this may be irrelevant if the industry has completely stagnated
though, and people are going to be bolting bloated software together or
designing hardware in drag-and-drop Microsoft GUI tools forever onwards
:-(

> In my day, we didn't have the option of using a calculator.
> Did that help or hurt? Are the aspects that it helped or hurt
> relevant to what is being tested?

Well, in a modern context I wish some testing at degree level was done
without the ability to use a calculator. Mental arithmetic is another
one of those basic skills which does come in handy from time to time,
plus it helps keep the brain sharp.

> OTOH, in the UC Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems,
> I was the first student ever to use a word processor for the PhD
> written exams. I managed to convince them that grading
> penmanship was no longer valid.

That's interesting. I believe over here you can be marked down if you
*don't* use a computer for certain literature work within courses. Funny
how it's changed over the years.

> > I'm amazed at how often the fundamentals that we were taught have helped
> > me work some problem out - and I've lost track of how many of the later
> > generations of graduates I've had to deal with who just can't think
> > properly because all they've been taught is how to push a mouse around a
> > screen.
>
> How many current students can find a square root without a sqrt or x^y key
> on a calculator?
>
> How many even know the square root of 2 and 3?

Now I'd say there's a difference between the two there - in that the
first is an example of a general skill which could be useful (and no, I
don't believe I've ever been taught how to do it!). The second is just a
specific of the first though and I'm not sure how useful memorising
specific numbers is (someone convince me, though)

> I even get some who have been TAUGHT that pi is EXACTLY 22/7.

Oh dear! :-)

> > Anyway, rant over :-)
>
> mine is just beginning.

ha ha!

cheers

Jules
Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 17:47:39 BST