Paging all BARF nerds (Programming)

[GiorgioFurioso]

Hello, my name is java programmer number 11ty billion. What's memory allocation?

You say that like it's a bad thing...James Gosling might say, 'mission accomplished".

 

[sandyxb]

Hello, my name is java programmer number 11ty billion. What's memory allocation?

Do you even li.. program?

 

[Bassem]

You say that like it's a bad thing...James Gosling might say, 'mission accomplished".

You know better than that... if you had no idea at all about the underlying memory allocation/deallocation, how would you figure out why your java program is leaking memory even thought it has a "garbage" collector?

 

[UDRider]

You know better than that... if you had no idea at all about the underlying memory allocation/deallocation, how would you figure out why your java program is leaking memory even thought it has a "garbage" collector?

Freaken VM engineers should build a better VM with better GC.

 

[gnahc79]

how would you figure out why your java program is leaking memory even thought it has a "garbage" collector?

it's java, it's supposed to be leaking memory

 

[goodness-707]

OP: The Thiel Foundation is paying students to drop out of school and create a startup, rather than get a degree. What does that tell you about the value of a degree in this age?

I think that you're right that a degree has little to do with what any one individual can accomplish. However... in order to get a job, you have convince a person (if not several) to hire you. In many cases, a technical degree is a baseline expectation. It's not what gets you the job, and rarely even considered all that much. But lacking one usually guarantees that it's part of the discussion.

Here's a shitty analogy: Do you need to be tall to plan in the NBA? Spud Webb wasn't tall, so clearly the answer is no, but does that really tell the whole story? Do you see a lot of short guys in the NBA? Does it mean that there's no value in being a tall basketball player?

OP, you have to consider what you want to do. If you want to create a new company or product, you don't need a degree to be highly successful (though you still need to gain the knowledge and skill somehow). If you want to land a job working for someone else, a degree (while having some costs) does no harm.

 

[Bassem]

Freaken VM engineers should build a better VM with better GC.

it's java, it's supposed to be leaking memory

 

[GiorgioFurioso]

You know better than that... if you had no idea at all about the underlying memory allocation/deallocation, how would you figure out why your java program is leaking memory even thought it has a "garbage" collector?

I didn't mean to suggest one should have "no idea" about mem alloc/dealloc. But I would never in a million years suggest to a beginner that they should study c/c++ in order to learn "how it works".

Memory leaks in Java, in my experience, have NOTHING to do with a programmer's knowledge of alloc/dealloc, and EVERYTHING to do with a programmer's knowledge of the reference graph s/he's created. If there's a leak, it's due to a design brain fart, and dealing directly with memory alloc/dealloc would not have helped.

I find memory leaks by using VM tools like JRockit Mission Control's memory leak tool.

I think that you're right that a degree has little to do with what any one individual can accomplish. However... in order to get a job, you have convince a person (if not several) to hire you. In many cases, a technical degree is a baseline expectation. It's not what gets you the job, and rarely even considered all that much. But lacking one usually guarantees that it's part of the discussion.

Here's a shitty analogy: Do you need to be tall to plan in the NBA? Spud Webb wasn't tall, so clearly the answer is no, but does that really tell the whole story? Do you see a lot of short guys in the NBA? Does it mean that there's no value in being a tall basketball player?

OP, you have to consider what you want to do. If you want to create a new company or product, you don't need a degree to be highly successful (though you still need to gain the knowledge and skill somehow). If you want to land a job working for someone else, a degree (while having some costs) does no harm.

Why Google doesn't care about college degrees

Thiel Fellowship Pays Kids To Drop Out Of School And Start A Company

As for your opinion that to create a company you need a degree, I couldn't disagree more, and the trends in Silicon Valley support that assertion.

If I was a newb wanting to code, I would learn html5/css, Javascript, node.js, and git. And I would be making bank in short order.

Feel free to disagree, but I'm up to my lower lip in the startup world...

 

[goodness-707]

As for your opinion that to create a company you need a degree, I couldn't disagree more, and the trends in Silicon Valley support that assertion.

That is not my opinion. In fact it's the opposite of what I said.

I'll re-state it more briefly: if you want to create a cool new product, you need skill, talent, knowledge, and motivation. If you want to create a successful product, you need all that plus some luck and (typically) connections with money. (note that college degree isn't in there).

If you want to get a job writing code for someone else, having a technical degree will make it a lot easier. Lacking a degree and experience will make it very hard.

 

[UDRider]

Why Google doesn't care about college degrees

Their hiring practices say otherwise.

 

[AbsolutEnduser]

Their hiring practices say otherwise.

Not only that, but the first link entitled "gugle doesn't care about college degrees" links to Schmidt who says that... You need a college degree ..and he speaks against Thiel.

In any case, though, you're all right. Giorgio is right, radvas is right and Bassem is right just for different levels of Javaism or Startupism. And it's true, radvas did say both alternatives

 

[wazzuFreddo]

I don't think schools teach C/C++ anymore. Out of 10 interns I interviews 3 had a little experience in it. :|

Also at senior level and knowing how call stack functions and advantages/disadvantages of recursive vs iterative? </endrant>

Damn, I know what you are talking about and I am a substation guy. (Not that I could program it)

The most programming I do these days is quick SQL scripts because I don't feel like dealing with the Excel Pi plug in.

I did take C programming back in the 90s though. Perhaps I should refresh and learn some new skills on GitHub as well.

 

[slowblood]

Not only that, but the first link entitled "gugle doesn't care about college degrees" links to Schmidt who says that... You need a college degree ..and he speaks against Thiel.

....

Hmmmm, first link

Google isn’t big on college degrees, although the search giant is inundated with applicants touting perfect GPAs from Ivy League schools.

leads to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/o...n-how-to-get-a-job-at-google-part-2.html?_r=0

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — HOW’S my kid going to get a job? There are few questions I hear more often than that one. In February, I interviewed Laszlo Bock, who is in charge of all hiring at Google — about 100 new hires a week — to try to understand what an employer like Google was looking for and why it was increasingly ready to hire people with no college degrees...

 

[UDRider]

Hmmmm, first link leads to http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/o...n-how-to-get-a-job-at-google-part-2.html?_r=0

Did you read the article? His point is not quite you don't have to go to college, but that you need to put effort in to learning and have a drive to learn more. Not just settle for curriculum.

A nice summary of the article:

Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like G.P.A. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But Bock is saying something important to them, too: Beware. Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it). And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.

 

[AbsolutEnduser]

Hmmmm, first link leads to http://www.notthisone.

first link attached in image


Google Chairman Eric Schmidt took a not-so-subtle swipe at tech critics who say that college is overrated. “There are various people who run around and make claims that higher education is not a good use of your time: they’re just wrong,”

 

[GiorgioFurioso]

That is not my opinion. In fact it's the opposite of what I said.

I'll re-state it more briefly: if you want to create a cool new product, you need skill, talent, knowledge, and motivation. If you want to create a successful product, you need all that plus some luck and (typically) connections with money. (note that college degree isn't in there).

If you want to get a job writing code for someone else, having a technical degree will make it a lot easier. Lacking a degree and experience will make it very hard.

My bad, it's been a hectic day, didn't read closely enough.

 

[slowblood]

Did you read the article? His point is not quite you don't have to go to college, but that you need to put effort in to learning and have a drive to learn more. Not just settle for curriculum.

A nice summary of the article:

I think that describes the OP! He's using free education through online course. Wants to get into Open Source projects. Shows a desire to learn.

The truth is that some many people with self-drive and access to open source learning and projects will start learn programming and we will see a lot of them come online. Progressively more and more. Soon taking our jobs. Winter is coming....

 

[n10sive]

The truth is that some many people with self-drive and access to open source learning and projects will start learn programming and we will see a lot of them come online. Progressively more and more. Soon taking our jobs. Winter is coming....

Winter is already here. Have a friend in the Bay Area who is saying these "kids" are going into companies CHEAP to get the experience and displacing higher paid programmers. He just had someone displace him for $7/hr (seriously).

My experience is that there are a lot of "programmers" but very few "Engineers". You can be a code hack and do well...but being a lead/cto type requires more than a correspondence course. Also, having seen this, the old adage of "buy cheap get cheap" holds true. Manager types have a hard time with this though.

 

[UDRider]

Oh hell, maybe it's for the best no one is teaching C/C++ anymore. Job security.

 

[SteelerFanatic]

Just an FYI.. if any of you java guys are looking for FTE in pleasanton and know your way around apache CXF, Spring, Jax-RS, shoot me a PM.