Computer majors?

[JesusFreak84]

I was just wondering if I'm the only computer major on CAA. If anyone else here is studying it in college/univeristy/whatever, then we can use this thread to "talk shop" or just make jokes that no one else gets. =-P I dunno...I'd especially like to find out how many other girl computer majors there are out there. At my college the average girl:guy ratio is 6:1, yet in both of my computer classes (and one of my theology classes,) I'm the only girl. Weirdness.

[Slater]

Code: Select all

System.out.println();
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);

System.out.println("Are you a computer major?");
String cmAnswer = next keyboard();

cmAnswer = cmAnswer.toUppercase;

if (cmAnswer = "YES")
{
    System.out.println();
    System.out.println("Welcome friend!/nThis is the place for you!");
    System.out.println("Help yourself to a nice cup of Java.");
}

Else
    System.out.println("GO AWAY!");

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I UNDERSTOOD A LOT OF THAT FRWL!!!!!!

Im takin some java ^^;;

[Warrior4Christ]

java.java:1: 'class' or 'interface' expected
System.out.println();
^
java.java:2: 'class' or 'interface' expected
Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in);
^
java.java:4: 'class' or 'interface' expected
System.out.println("Are you a computer major?");
^
java.java:5: 'class' or 'interface' expected
String cmAnswer = next keyboard();
^
java.java:7: 'class' or 'interface' expected
cmAnswer = cmAnswer.toUppercase;
^
java.java:9: 'class' or 'interface' expected
if (cmAnswer = "YES")
^
6 errors


You forgot a class and a main() method and Else is not capitals!


Guy:girl ratio of 6:1 is probably about right.

[Warrior4Christ]

Sorry 'bout the double post, but it's worth it...

Brainstorming about how to steal the coffeetable from one of the tutorial rooms at uni (written by uni students for uni students). Pay particular attention to the Java code in the inset picture (sorry it's blurry, but I was laughing too hard to hold it still...)

[Note: CSLC = Computer Science Learning Centre]
[Note #2: It's spelt Centre]

[LorentzForce]

I see many bugs in that code, I'll let frwl fix it...

Anyways, welcome to CAA's Computing section. I hope you have a pleasant time here as we all generally talk about random things not really related to computers. We don't really talk in binary, although feel free to do so if you really want to do just that.

Edit: W4C, that's hillarious

[TurkishMonky]

int main {
cout << "Me Comp Eng major!";
cout << "But the first year is horribly easy, like this code.";
char x;cin >> x; //I use devC to be a rebel in my class...
return 0;
}
//whoops, i forgot the preprocessor,etc. oh well.

[Technomancer]

int main {
cout << "Me Comp Eng major!";
cout << "But the first year is horribly easy, like this code.";
char x;cin >> x; //I use devC to be a rebel in my class...
return 0;
}

Now the real test is whether you can do it in assembly.

[Mithrandir]

There are quite a few computer computer nerds in the house. I did my time as a computer science major. The theory serves me quite well, actually. That kinda makes me less patient with fast-tracker Technical School types, but I guess everyone has to have their hang-ups, right?

[shooraijin]

Now the real test is whether you can do it in assembly.

You didn't say which processor family, so I choose 6502.

[code]
/*
this should assemble as-is under the xa cross-assembler
http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/

int main {
cout << "Me Comp Eng major!"]

[Technomancer]

Cool. I've forgotten most of how to program in assembly, since I don't really use it anymore. Mostly I knew the x86 and z80 instruction sets, although I'd also done a little with the 8051.

[MyrrhLynn]

ASSEMBLY?!? Whoa we never even covered that at my school.

So yes I'm a girl computer major, haha. Or at least I was one, since I just graduated this past spring. I must not look like a computer person though, because everyone in real life is always shocked when they find out.

[Warrior4Christ]

I've done x86 previously (self learned), and we're learning DLX now.

Lucky TurkishMonky's program didn't print any integers, eg shooraijin?

[Sammy Boy]

Assembly is a cool language. Binary code is better. AND and OR gates are the best. LOL :p

Whilst at university, I oftened wished the C library had a doAssignment() function.

[shooraijin]

I've done x86 previously (self learned), and we're learning DLX now.

Lucky TurkishMonky's program didn't print any integers, eg shooraijin?

Pretty lucky, although on the C64 there are library functions in the BASIC ROM to convert ASCII text to signed 16-bit integer, and then print it back. Most home computers of the day had something similar.

I know a little x86, but I don't use an x86-based computer, so I rarely deal with it. I've done some PPC assembly, and a little 68000, though I'd hardly call myself fluent in either. I'd like to learn Z80, but never got around to it.

In some ways the 6502 is a very easy assembly language to learn. There are only three registers, an accumulator and two index registers (not counting stack, status and program counters), and a limited set of easily understood finite instructions. You can also use zero page as a set of 256 secondary registers which are nearly as fast as the internal ones. So, probably because of the limits, it's easy to get your head around, although the CPU is chiefly limited because of its poor orthogonality (the 68K was really good at this), the 256-byte stack, and the 16-bit address space. There are also no mult, div or FP instructions, so a lot of people had runtime libraries for that.

It was as popular as it was because it was very thrifty with clock cycles (a 1MHz 6502 could even beat a 4.77MHz 8086 in some benchmarks due to the fact that most instructions took 3-4 cycles versus 12-14), it was cheap, and because it only used the bus during half the cycle, it could easily be chained to other kinds of coppers or sidecar chips. It even had a primitive type of pipelining called prefetch that was facilitated by its big-endian addressing.

The 6502 or one of its variants was used in most Commodore 8-bits, the Atari 8-bits, and the Apple 8-bits. It also appeared in the Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800, and in many contemporary arcade machines, and a specialized 6502 without decimal mode and with sound circuitry (the N2A03) appeared in the Nintendo. The 16-bit 65816, which addressed many of these faults and featured a 24-bit addressing range, appeared in the Apple IIgs and the Super NES, and in the SuperCPU add-on accelerator for the C64 and 128.

[Mithrandir]

I don't know if I should be upset about MyrrhLynn's no-assembly-required school.


And of course, I had to throw in the pun.

[MyrrhLynn]

I don't know if I should be upset about MyrrhLynn's no-assembly-required school.


And of course, I had to throw in the pun.

Oh wow. That was bad.

[Kaligraphic]

I did an AS program in CIS. I don't know if that qualifies as something that would make Mithrandir impatient with me, though.

[shooraijin]

Standing in one place for more than three seconds makes Mithrandir impatient.

... of course, it also makes *me* impatient.

[Mithrandir]

That depends entirely on what I'm doing. If I'm TALKING, then I'M not the one getting impatient.


I can't say the same for a certain task-oriented friend of mine...

[shooraijin]

That depends entirely on what I'm doing. If I'm TALKING, then I'M not the one getting impatient.


I can't say the same for a certain task-oriented friend of mine...

Yeah, yeah. Are we going to go out and do something, or just sit around and blather?

Duff was the only guy who understood.

[TurkishMonky]

hmmm.... i wonder if i'll get to learn asembly or not. *turkish monky hopes so*
currently i only know high level languages (think most forms of Basic and the .net languages - VB.net, C#, J# - evil microsoft languages) , except for basic c++ (which is still kind of high level)

[Technomancer]

You'll have to look at your programme. Most Comp Sci. programmes at serious universities will ensure that you do, simply because at some point you need to understand the low-level behaviour of your computer as well as machine organization in general. This is also true for any Electrical/Computer engineering programme, where there is an even greater emphasis on machine-level programming.

As for the programmes offered by the technical colleges, that's not easy to predict. You'll definately have to do some of it if you ever learn about embedded/real-time systems. Unfortunately in these kinds of schools the emphasis is more on immediately practicle skills rather than the foundational theory that's really needed for a lot of design-level work.

[shooraijin]

Turkish, I'm sure there's such a course available at a minimum as an upper division elective. It would probably be x86, but it would still stand you in good stead.

[LorentzForce]

My uni "forced" everyone to learn at least basic Assembly in first 6 weeks of the first semester in first year.

I'm in a good course and uni

[Warrior4Christ]

Has anyone done/heard of the ACM programming contest (sponsored by IBM)? This is the second year I've done it. This time we (same team members both years) came second in the state .

[Mithrandir]

Ah yes, the ACM. I participated once. We had a team of two or three of us. It was pretty bad. We were all first year students. I think Harvey Mudd won that year. I did get a problem written, but we were way out of our league. I'd be interested to see what kind of problems they throw at students, now that I've been out of school so long.

[blkmage]

I'm in my final year of high school and I'm attempting to get into the Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo. Does that count?

[Warrior4Christ]

Harvey Mudd

Is that like.......Harvard?

These are the problems we did (in the South Pacific Region):
http://www.sppcontest.org/2005/Problems2005.html
The last two were just about impossible...
I had an almost not quite compilable solution for Q7. It was highly recursive and not at all efficient (but it hardly is when you're rushing to get answers).
The first few were more simple.
We answered 3 questions and had non-working programs for three more questions. It was mainly the other two guys that made us go well... They were both fast typists and good VIMmers .

[Technomancer]

Interesting list. The second-to-last problem really isn't really that difficult; we had one like it as part of our third-year software engineering course. The best known solution is to implement Dijkstra's algorithm, which can be implemented either recursively or sequentially. There may be better solutions, but that's the one you'll find in most introductory texts (e.g. Kreyzig). I'm not sure about the last one though, but I'm sure I could find the relevant info at the library if I needed to. As it happens though, I've never entered the ACM contest.

I'm in my final year of high school and I'm attempting to get into the Software Engineering program at the University of Waterloo. Does that count?

Cool. My younger brother went there for Comp. Sci. Thay have a good program, but the adminstration there is beyond asinine.