My impression as an undergraduate in CS was that most of my peers were mechanics, rather than artists. They could ape things, but only few could see past what was shown and apply the principles abstractly.
This may have to do with failure in the earlier education--I remember that again, peers could do 'picture frame problems' but without any real comprehension of the actual algebra. On the other hand, it may just be a question of what human beings are, and how few artists there are, proportionately speaking.... K >>> Gabriel Díaz <[email protected]> 04/05/2010 12:56 pm >>> Hello (about students/trainees and perl) Being able to recognize what you've studied in your daily work is quite difficult in most places. Also your work objectives are rarely related to the correctness, in the sense of science. I mean something correct or well enough for the business could not be correct or well enough from the science point of view. Speaking about non programming-related business, for me, it's enough if a student is able to use or ask for a programming language to solve a task perl, vbscript or whatever. I've seen a couple of times students matching two lists of thousands of entries by hand, either in paper or in the original excel format. And I've seen mentors and managers agree with the method. If they can write regexp, even ugly ones, that's enough, you can show them alternatives, suggest other ways, etc. The fail is not the school, or not completely. The tools are given to you, it is not usual you can choose the tool you want to use to finish a task. In nice places, you might be able to propose one. . . slds. gabi
