[OT] partialy I was wondering what suggestions for programing

[Leo J Mauler]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:17:18 -0500 Bryan Richard <bryan at booknerd.net>
writes:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:58:08AM -0600, DCT Jared wrote:
>
> > Fundamentals of programming books will be like 
> > you described, fundamentals of C, or fundamentals 
> > of Assembler. Pick one and go.
> 
> I agree with this logic. You learn programming by 
> programming not my reading.

I had a teacher in JCCC try to teach COBOL by *reading and writing*, not
by *programming*.  He would painstakingly write *all* the source code of
the assigned project out on the whiteboard, then erase it.  He didn't
bother teaching any fundamentals of COBOL.

So everyone who could write longhand fast enough passed the course. 
People like myself who have been on a computer so long
that...their...longhand...is...really...really...slow, either didn't pass
or barely passed the course.  There was no real opportunity to learn
COBOL in this class, so you couldn't try to write your own source code to
finish the project because you didn't know enough COBOL to write the
code.  And if you had a full class load at the same time, you didn't have
the time to teach yourself COBOL on the side.

Oh, and he was a jerk too.  I told him a month in advance that I was
going to be away from class on Friday September 10th, 1999, the day
before my *wedding*, for the *wedding rehearsal*.  He claimed he wrote it
into his schedule.  Then on Monday September 13th, I learned that one of
the important exams had been moved forward to September 10th, without any
warning, and that all those who were not present on the 10th had just
flunked the exam (and possibly the course, see above about writing
longhand).  The teacher claimed to have never heard from me that I was
going to be gone on September 10th and refused to schedule a makeup exam,
and had the further rule that anyone who missed an exam without
scheduling the absence in advance (barring being injured) would flunk the
course.  If the T.A. hadn't heard me ask at the beginning of the
semester, I'd have flunked the course instantly.  The T.A. told the
teacher that I had in fact mentioned it at the start of the semester, and
I got to take a makeup exam.  Other people weren't so lucky.

In 1999 it sorta made sense to take COBOL, since everyone still thought
Y2K was a big deal.  :)

(And before you ask, I finally was able to afford a real honeymoon in
2001, September 9th through the 13th.  We visited the St. Louis Arch on
September 10th.)

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!