Computer people - Where did you learn most you're stuff?

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by amazingtrade, Jun 26, 2004.

  1. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    At University/College or on the job?

    I am realising I still have a lot to learn about the theory of things, from projects I am working on. This makes me ask the question is is better do a masters in somthing like software engineering at a not so good university (I will get paid for doing it there), go to a proper university but end up in more debt, or just go straight into work.
     
    amazingtrade, Jun 26, 2004
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  2. amazingtrade

    TonyL Club Krautrock Plinque

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    I gave up being a third rate muso in 1990 and got sent on an IT course by the dole – it was programming in COBOL. I walked it with ease. The lecturer left at the end of the course, I applied and I got his job and ended up teaching the next course! I worked there for a few years teaching myself and then teaching others what I had learnt, including Novell networking and a bit of AS/400. After a few years I went after better money and ended up contracting in London primarily as a Network Manager, though ended up as a IT Manager for part of Pfizer! I'm still astounded I managed to blag that one!

    I then made the critical mistake of moving up north at exactly the time the bottom fell out of the IT market at the end of the 90s, I ended up helping set up the training for the phone support monkeys at a crappy cable / broadband company (yes the one that everyone hates), then got made redundant. I haven't worked in IT for a few years now despite having what looks like a pretty good CV. My skills are totally out of date now – I haven't even seen the latest Windows server technology etc.

    If I can give any advice at all, (which I probably shouldn't as I can't get any IT work I actually want!) it is to get proven experience and qualifications in stuff that is in demand. Some thing like a MCSE in the current Windows server technology will get you a job infinitely quicker than a post grad degree.

    I often had to deal with students on their year out in 'work placement' when I was a IT or Network Manager and to be honest found them pretty bloody useless as they just had theory, and usually the theory of something irrelevant. There was nothing I could ask them to do as they didn't know Novell / NT / Outlook / Notes / AS/400 or whatever at all – many not even at user level! To get them to do a five minute task you had to spend 2-4 hours explaining the basics, it was quicker to do it myself, and when the shit is hitting the fan speed is everything. I have a feeling that IT degrees have improved a lot over the last 5-10 years and are more practical, this has to be a good thing – I kept getting sent expert bloody Pascal programmers! What use its that to anyone?

    Tony.
     
    TonyL, Jun 26, 2004
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  3. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    Yeah I suppose my degree is good in the fact it does have lots of practical stuff to it, like ASP/PHP/Java/C++ programming which is in demand, however I haven't got deep enough knowledge of them lanaguages to be employable apart from ASP and PHP.

    They added a module on my course this year in Windows 2003 server adminstration as they realised employers wanted people with these skills. I don't know that much about Linux though.

    The problem with the I.T industry is you do need to keep up to date. Even websites have changed in technology over the last 5 years ago. Then it was all HTML and CGI, now its all PHP and CSS.

    I assume you had a decent level of qualifcations and work experience before you got sent this for I.T training or did you just leave school at 16? Sorry to be a bit nosey.
     
    amazingtrade, Jun 26, 2004
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  4. amazingtrade

    michaelab desafinado

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    Taught myself. Was a computer nerd from the moment I first encountered one aged 11 (when the school bought a Commodore Pet). I learned BASIC and 6502 assembler on that and then learnt Z80 assembler when I got a ZX81. The real improvements came when I got a BBC Model B which is where I learnt to program in a structured way (BBC BASIC was quite advanced, and allowed this - I also got pretty good at 6502 assembler and sold a few bits of software).

    Studied biochemistry at uni (why???? - I should have done Comp. Sci.) and spent more time writing software for the department than doing my course work. Halfway through my 2nd year I quit uni and decided to look for a job. Of course I had no "proven" experience and no nice bits of paper to show for my knowledge so I didn't have much luck. Enrolled in a government training scheme course where I was supposed to learn COBOL which I did with ease. The course tutor soon had me learning C aswell which was much more fun and my first exposure to a quality high level language.

    Part of the deal with the training scheme was that employers would "hire" you for 12 weeks on no pay (whilst the state payed me income support and travel expenses) and then decide whether to take you on or not. Luckily, the employer I managed to get a placement with was the Bank of England. They hired me properly and I programmed COBOL on Tandem fault-tolerant minis for about 6 months before moving onto doing systems support and programming in the Tandem proprietary language "TAL" which is a lot like Pascal. 6 months later got another (much better paid) Tandem programming job (still COBOL) but that company also had a team writing client software in C that ran on PCs. It wasn't long before I transferred to that team after claiming I could program in C. I spent the entire weekend before my transfer reading all the books again and by the end of the week I was a fully fledged C programmer :) . Then came Windows, C++, Java etc. etc. in successive jobs.

    Now I write mostly Java software to run on Solaris and Windows machines. Still do the odd bit of C++ (on Windows) and Visual Basic aswell.

    So, basically, learnt the basics as a kid/nerd and then learnt the rest on the job. I don't have a single computer related qualification and TBH, I think they're often a waste of time allthough unfortunately employers do often value them highly. Once you have decent experience though, qualifications start to mean less and less.

    I started doing a part time MSC in Computer Science at the OU but it was IMO all a load of bollox so I ditched it. I wasn't going to jump through hoops for some professor with 10 years out of date ideas just to get a nice bit of paper with a fancy letterhead :rolleyes: .

    Michael.
     
    michaelab, Jun 26, 2004
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  5. amazingtrade

    TonyL Club Krautrock Plinque

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    I left at 16 with minimal qualifications and didn't get any more until I did the COBOL thing (a City & Guilds 424). I got the NVQ D32, 33 and 34 training & verification qualifications whilst teaching and haven't got any qualifications since. I survived in IT for as long as I did purely on good references and a proven track record. I'm sure this is still how it works; say a company wants to roll out 6 Citrix servers they want someone who did it successfully for another company a few weeks ago and can prove it. You just have to get your foot in the door at the beginning.

    Good grief, there's another COBOL literate audio forum owner out there! I love COBOL, you can make it read like a totally surreal book: 'perform pub-crawl until pissed or sick' being a perfectly legitimate command, and there ain't many languages you can say that about!

    Tony.
     
    TonyL, Jun 26, 2004
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  6. amazingtrade

    Philip King Enlightened User

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    I studied Computer Science at Uni and covered a lot of different topics, none of which came in handy un till more than 5 years into my career and certainly didn't help me at all whilst applying for jobs.

    After uni and the obligatory Tescos job, I ended up working for a company that trained me full time for 6 months in Unix, SQL and Lotus Notes off all things! The training was free but they didn't pay me, once completed they were obliged to offer me a 4 year job contract, (the trade off for free training), and promptly pimped me out to various companies who needed extra resource.

    After that I started freelancing and working with various contacts I had meet on site.
     
    Philip King, Jun 26, 2004
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  7. amazingtrade

    lAmBoY Lothario and Libertine

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    Self taught from zx81 days. Remeber that magazine in the early 80s called BASIC? I got em all.

    Studied as a mech/prod engr - got made redundant after a 4 year apprenticeship.

    Decided that the automobile industry was a load of shite.

    Got a job in a company that manufactured PCs as a prod/tech engr (i was already building systems for freinds in these 386/486 days).

    The company got some OEM projects building for Compaq and SUN - I became the new product engineer - traveled the world doing stuff I loved.

    Started a BSC comp science in the evening.

    4 years later and lots and lots and lots of hard work and sacrifice I graduated:)

    In the mean time I was approached by an industry leader in hard disc manufacturing, and the rest as they say is history:)

    Considering a part time MSc in business management now as Im getting bored of the tech life.
     
    lAmBoY, Jun 27, 2004
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  8. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    I think an MSc in business management is a good idea in your mid career, my uncle did one about 10 years after he got is electronic engineering degree. He is now one of the cheif electrical engineers at a very large neclear rycleing plant in Cumbria.
     
    amazingtrade, Jun 27, 2004
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  9. amazingtrade

    penance Arrogant Cock

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    Self taught, started about 8 years ago when we got given a PC.
    Completed a course in Pascal (god knows why), Then C and finnaly C++ open uni course.
    Cant get a job in software despite nearly 5 years of trying (getting to the point of giving up on that idea)
    Now working for Hewlett Packard as a storage device failure analysis engineer, tad different to my original goal.
     
    penance, Jun 27, 2004
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  10. amazingtrade

    TonyL Club Krautrock Plinque

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    My impression is that software was the sector hardest hit when the bottom fell out of the IT market a few years ago. I have a lot of good friends who were seriously good programmers and are now out of work - these people earned an absolute fortune a few years back. The market now seems flooded with good and experienced programmers!

    Tony.
     
    TonyL, Jun 27, 2004
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  11. amazingtrade

    penance Arrogant Cock

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    I think your right Tony.
    A friend of mine was made redundant last october. He has 15 years exp, covering AS400/RPG, C, C++, Cobol VB etc.. and still he cant get work.
     
    penance, Jun 27, 2004
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  12. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    I guess the some of the problem is Object Oriented Programming, even websites are produced this way now rather than the unstructed C style of programming.

    I think if you're a good Java programmer with experience you can still get jobs, but stuff like C++ there seems to be more people with the skills.

    Also about Pascal was that ever used as a serious programming language?
     
    amazingtrade, Jun 27, 2004
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  13. amazingtrade

    penance Arrogant Cock

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    AT, C is a structured language if coded that way.
    Pascal was used a lot, way back when...
     
    penance, Jun 27, 2004
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  14. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    What was so good about Pascal? I have used it once or twice but I don't see the advantages it has over C. I guess it has more built in functions which made it easier and quicker to produce stuff.

    Just don't tell me that Quick Basic was ever used in a professional way :p
     
    amazingtrade, Jun 27, 2004
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  15. amazingtrade

    penance Arrogant Cock

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    AT,
    TBH i'm not sure. Tho i would disagree that it has more built in functions.
    It is a strongly formatted language IE you have to use new lines when coding and so it indoctrinates a tidier approach to coding, that can be useful when starting C ;)
     
    penance, Jun 27, 2004
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  16. amazingtrade

    I-S Good Evening.... Infidel

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    Ok, I'm not a computer person (but spent far too much time with on account of it being the same department at uni), but I'm from a related discipline and...

    I've learned a hell of a lot in the year since I graduated. There is a huge amount you don't learn at university that you will routinely end up doing.

    Masters degrees have a value, but so does the year's experience you'd gain in that time. I changed from a master's course to bachelors, and don't regret doing that. In a few years time I think I will do some sort of masters course (either MSc or MBA), but I don't know for sure what I want to do yet.
     
    I-S, Jun 27, 2004
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  17. amazingtrade

    TonyL Club Krautrock Plinque

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    It was mainly a 'teaching' language – it was very well laid out, the syntax was very logical, commands are called what you would expect and work how you would expect. VB pretty much killed it stone dead as it added the structured aspects of Pascal to BASIC, included all the Windows programming functions and also brought in OOP. I used to be able to program in Pascal but have now totally forgotten the syntax! COBOL sticks in the mind as it looks like no other language – I could still do that now even though I haven't for about a decade. I never got my head round C at all and even thinking about C++ made my brain start to implode.

    Tony.
     
    TonyL, Jun 27, 2004
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  18. amazingtrade

    julian2002 Muper Soderator

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    c is basicly a macro language for assembler. c++ is a bit of a mess with one or two neat features. cobol is purely there as a pension plan for old programmers as no young whippersnapper understands it. pic x arghhhh. a degree merely proves that the holder is capable of learning new things - or maybe is a dab hand at blackmail. both useful properties in todays job market.
    cheers


    julian
     
    julian2002, Jun 27, 2004
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  19. amazingtrade

    michaelab desafinado

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    I think you're being a bit harsh on C++ Julian. It's a pretty good effort at making C object-oriented and the standard template library is now very good. However, once you've programmed in Java for a while it's awful going back to C++ - you realise just how much superior Java is in pretty much every way. C++ just lends itself to sloppy programming and untraceable bugs (memory overwrites, pointer arithmetic etc) far too easily. In Java, none of that stuff is possible and it's none the worse for it. Even speed wise, Java is pretty well up there these days so IMO C or C++ are only necessary if blazing performance is the no.1 concern.

    Michael.
     
    michaelab, Jun 28, 2004
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  20. amazingtrade

    julian2002 Muper Soderator

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    i've not programmed in java so i couldn't comment on it but a number of people i know say the same thing about java vs c++ as you are michael. for most things i do blazing performance is the no 1 concern especially on weedy machines like the ps2. probably my biggest concern with c++ is the fact that if you are not very careful you can end up with huge memory gobbling objects which are not a good thing on a machine with a hard memory limit.
    cheers

    julian
     
    julian2002, Jun 28, 2004
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