EPTHack Starcraft: ggtracker is hiring! - Page 4
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Rhine
187 Posts
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SolidTBo
Canada13 Posts
On April 18 2012 10:55 johnnywup wrote: i think "hack starcraft" is a bad title for this. Actually "Hackers" are people who learn how to go in and modify systems (Students in a Computer Programming class after learning code, database, etc. May be considered Hackers by the time they graduate out of the class). "Crackers" are people who go in and modify systems with the intention to do damage to someones system. So Hack can be considered an appropriate term for the title. | ||
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doda
53 Posts
I believe i can show you something that will pique your interest, but I need a few more days before it's ready for public alpha  | ||
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Hertzy
Finland355 Posts
On April 20 2012 21:40 SolidTBo wrote: Actually "Hackers" are people who learn how to go in and modify systems (Students in a Computer Programming class after learning code, database, etc. May be considered Hackers by the time they graduate out of the class). "Crackers" are people who go in and modify systems with the intention to do damage to someones system. So Hack can be considered an appropriate term for the title. Unfortunately, the term was hijacked by the mundane media and it's meaning in contemporary English is the same as 'crack'. On topic, I'm really regretting that I haven't gotten around to developing a coding portfolio for myself. Something to do with a videogame by some company called "Blizzard", if I recall correctly. | ||
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Kentor
United States5784 Posts
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Badinoff
15 Posts
On April 19 2012 09:10 Fyrn wrote: I keep reading these "I'm just now starting to study" replies and I really, really hate reading stuff like that. Here's an important thing that you need to realize: Studying CS will not make you a rockstar developer. It'll most likely (depends on the university, but is probably still generally true) give you a broad basic understanding of everything but not a huge amount of real applicable skills. If you're really serious about coding in any capacity (whether it be the web, integrated systems, whatever floats your boat) the key to becoming proficient is, just like in SC2, practice. And that's where the fun begins: you don't need anything that you do not already have in order to start. You're posting on these forums on a computer and that is all you'll need. Don't let a mostly arbitrary degree that you're chasing dictate your progress. Having the degree will certify an absolute minimum of proficiency, nothing more. No good employer will ever require you to have a degree (I'd even say a math degree is potentially worth more to a coder than a CS degree.) Just start coding ..and never stop. Because in an ordinary human lifespan, you will never be able to learn everything there is to learn (not even about a field you might specialize in, simply because things move too fast) What you will get out of a (good) CS program is how to best go about writing code. Things like version control discipline and thorough unit testing/error handling. I highly recommend this article from 1996 about the development practices that went into writing software for the space shuttle: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html Now, obviously what they did is overkill if you're not writing control code for a spacecraft, but the lesson to take away from it is to think first, plan, and then write code. If you just sit down and start coding away, you'll inevitably be left with a buggy mess that you will spend twice as long fixing when it bites you in the ass. Take a deep breath and do it right the first time. Make that your normal way of doing things, and THEN never stop coding. | ||
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Fyrn
Germany62 Posts
On April 23 2012 08:44 Badinoff wrote: think first, plan, and then write code. This is correct, once you know what you're doing. If you're learning (and sometimes even if you're beyond the learning), just coding away is the way to go. And web development is the best way to go while learning because you see results extremely fast (you can just refresh the browser after every freaking line you wrote, see the endresult right away!) The single best way to get typical patterns and best practices into your head or learn about common mistakes is to actually do it and then realize there's a better way to do it. For example: I found out that the singleton pattern is an actual thing years after I first implemented it. Same with MVC and other practices (that is years before Yahoo came along, heheh. Nowadays it obviously shouldn't take years to realize something like this ;p) Sure, I could've read about it, studying the subject ..but if you rarely (or never, in my case) do that, you develop an understanding for code far beyond that of anyone who might've read every book on a language until you get to a point where the language doesn't even matter anymore because it's just minor syntax difference for you (that, however, doesn't work when doing only web development. What's a type? I don't know!) Oh damn, SC2 analogy time: it's like learning about every build there is and eventually training to do them all. Then still getting destroyed because something unexpected happened and simply training these builds didn't prepare you how to react properly. I know some pretty bright coders that struggle a lot with new concepts or languages simply because they're so set in the ways that some book or lecture taught them, they rarely experiment and can't cope when they have to think "outside the box" (yea, I hate that term too, but it applies..) - however, that makes the difference between "junior" and "senior" titles in positions (for me, at least. I know there's terrible "seniors" too.) However, we both agree on the end result: never stop coding! | ||
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ArcadeR
Germany199 Posts
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dsjoerg
United States384 Posts
What you will get out of a (good) CS program is how to best go about writing code. I wish this were true. Some CS programs, like the one I took at Harvard, were all about computational complexity, the semantics of different programming languages, a bit about the internals of hardware and the OS, some graph theory and proving things about languages and turing machine, etc. Nothing really about software engineering. They saw that as something you'd learn out in the real world, not something of any academic importance and therefore not taught. | ||
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Fyrn
Germany62 Posts
On April 25 2012 01:36 dsjoerg wrote: I wish this were true. Some CS programs, like the one I took at Harvard, were all about computational complexity, the semantics of different programming languages, a bit about the internals of hardware and the OS, some graph theory and proving things about languages and turing machine, etc. Nothing really about software engineering. They saw that as something you'd learn out in the real world, not something of any academic importance and therefore not taught. Hehe, sounds about right. Here in Berlin, at the Technical University (the better of the three), you'll have Java, Haskell, hardware architecture, midlevel math and random nonsense like that. Some of these programs haven't been revised for decades and most are just too general. All of them require you to specialize yourself and be passionate about it. I frankly have no idea why BS in CS is even on job postings at all most of the time.. the only person it serves is the non-tech HR person that sifts through them and proceeds to discard the best applications. (This only applies to large "traditional" companies, where you'll eventually meet an Oracle rep with a really large grin on his face and 99.8% of the employees really have no idea wtf you're doing. The Office style.) | ||
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ShadesofGraylin
United States32 Posts
On April 25 2012 01:36 dsjoerg wrote: I wish this were true. Some CS programs, like the one I took at Harvard, were all about computational complexity, the semantics of different programming languages, a bit about the internals of hardware and the OS, some graph theory and proving things about languages and turing machine, etc. Nothing really about software engineering. They saw that as something you'd learn out in the real world, not something of any academic importance and therefore not taught. The computer science program at RPI was similar with little to no emphasis on software engineering. There is one tack on course at the end of your studies that introduces the concepts of software engineering and maintainability, but one course isn't really sufficient. Annectdotally, I've found that often times professors and especially graduate TAs write code that can be virtually impossible to understand. It may be that their own lack of experience developing/maintaining software is another factor that keeps them from being able to bring that material into the classrom. On the other hand, I've seen many colleges now have "Software Engineering" as a separate disipline with its own faculty and degree requirements. Friends in these programs appear to learn much more about building software and much less about OS internals and Prolog. I am unsure that one approach actually creates better developers than the other though. Just a different kind. | ||
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Cheshyr
United States78 Posts
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