What's the haps?

[MeshGearFox]

I took stats and I've never had to use anything from that when programming or in my testing job. It really depends on what you're doing. If your software is for a domain that's inherently concerned with stats, sure, you'll need it. If your software's for a domain that's NOT inherently concerned with stats? You probably won't need it.

Although I can't honestly say that I've found any of the CS classes I took useful for much of anything. Every programming class I took was woefully inadequate at teaching programming -- useful for teaching some algorithms and hey, look, these data structures exist in the C++, and other stuff that you could get just as well from perusing a reference book, sure. But in terms of how to actually write complete programs that do non-trivial things? I never had a class get into that, and I'm not even sure you're not going to learn that from a class, instead of just going out and making something.

--- edit ---

Oh god I got a stuffed Woobat from Five Below because it's amazing.

[Klutz64]

I was looking through my Shadow Hearts: From The New World manual and saw a Digital Devil Saga 2 advert on the back. Had a whoa moment when I noticed they mentioned John's review of it.


Slowpoke Darilon is slow.

I saw that once for a game too and felt *proud* for some reason.  Like "yeaaaah I'm a part of THAT community".... fuck I'm lame.

But yeah I think it's great when they use the reviews here; I love the writers here.

I feel the same way whenever I read one of Kim's reviews in Game Informer.

[Holykael1]

I took stats and I've never had to use anything from that when programming or in my testing job. It really depends on what you're doing. If your software is for a domain that's inherently concerned with stats, sure, you'll need it. If your software's for a domain that's NOT inherently concerned with stats? You probably won't need it.

Although I can't honestly say that I've found any of the CS classes I took useful for much of anything. Every programming class I took was woefully inadequate at teaching programming -- useful for teaching some algorithms and hey, look, these data structures exist in the C++, and other stuff that you could get just as well from perusing a reference book, sure. But in terms of how to actually write complete programs that do non-trivial things? I never had a class get into that, and I'm not even sure you're not going to learn that from a class, instead of just going out and making something.

--- edit ---

Oh god I got a stuffed Woobat from Five Below because it's amazing.

Classes are mostly useless, I am currently skipping most of the lectures. I am basically learning everything on my own through the recommended books and shit. If anything they classes are  nothing more than a reference point of what I should be learning at a specific time or whatever.

[MeshGearFox]

If anything they classes are  nothing more than a reference point of what I should be learning at a specific time or whatever.

They don't even get that right. The pacing is /glacial/.

I don't know. I pretty much learn by doing and I don't get anything out of lectures, which is why the training sessions we occasionally have at work are useless to me.

[dalucifer0]

That's why I like self-directed learning. Classes can be useful if you actually have questions that need to be answered. For example, if I couldn't find the answer myself or if I didn't have any fucks to give to search for it, then that's where I see classes being useful. I've honestly only had one class where the lectures were necessary (my final finance class), but the other 40 or so classes I had to take at university seemed like a waste of time to go to.

[Elegance]

I'm going to have to go on the other side of the argument here and say classes are useful.  I actually would have preferred to have college classes everyday to keep the focus up and not have to rush through everything.  I would go to classes, pay attention, and take notes.  Outside of class it was the opposite.  I had zero motivation to learn and do schoolwork when not in the classroom.  However, this might be because I was already going to class and felt that everything I needed to learn should only be done in one place.

That said, I also agree that classes can be a waste of time.  It really depends on the student, teacher, and material, which makes me think it shouldn't be a standardized system.

[Holykael1]

In my university I have lectures and practical classses. Practical classes are obligatory to attend and they are somewhat useful because that's when we actually program or do exercises. The lectures I have attended are so boring and slow that I feel like Im there wasting my time so I'd rather stay at home, waste my fuckin life on the internet and then panic a few days before each exam as I try to learn a few months worth of things. I have been doing great so far!
Hell I even did that with the MIPS assembly last semester and I learned the whole freaking semester in 1 day. I didnt exactly excell  but a 13/20 is not too shabby.
I can't do that with x86 assembly because it's getting more complicated though and fuck Im behind on C++. I  need to catch up in these following weeks.
Programming during the first semester was  also a stupid language called Scheme made for learning.. I would have rather jumped straight into C++ to learn programming principles and basics. C++ is so much less restrictive and obnoxiously puzzley.

[Annubis]

Quick everyone ! Say something programmy !!!

When I started database, I learned that 0 is the new 1.

[MeshGearFox]

@ Holykael:

1. Scheme/Racket is actually really neat/useful and I'm 100% certain that it only looks stupid because your lectures screwed up on teaching it/explaining WHY  functional programming languages are something you'd want to learn.

Also Scheme's probably less restricting than C++ (although it's more restricted than Common Lisp because it has some safety features built in), so I'm guessing your profs PROBABLY were only exposing you to a limited subset of the language or putting some arbitrary restrictions on it.

And C++ gets incredibly obnoxiously puzzly, in ways that Scheme/LISPs aren't. There are a lot of fiddly design patterns you need to rely on in C++ that are transparent in LISPs.

2. I've been working with MIPS R3000 for awhile for reasons and how is X86 more complicated that MIPS? I've never used X86 before so I'm curious.

[zergrav]

I managed to get 3 years of college (comp sci / applied mathematics dbl), until I dropped out, as it was pointless. I was learning that crap for free for many a year before high school, let alone college (my salary / job satisfaction doesn't give me many regrets except that I stayed for the whole 3 years lol).

I honed my stats skills for my current position, as it's for an in-house data-analytics / BI solution; however, the "domain" is online, continual medical education for teh medicine men/woman (doctors). The "Big Data" trend, though I hate the buzz-word, is becoming wildly more prevalent, as is providing metrics for "Agile" team efficacy. Also, if you ever get into some serious floating-point arithmetic error-propagation, some rudimentary stats can be quite helpful  :)    -- edit -- And don't forget any sort of AI / fuzzy-logic. I mean, I think it would be fair to assume, to some degree, software folks frequenting these forums may have some interest in its application to gaming

I was looking through my Shadow Hearts: From The New World manual

Did the manual mention the ridiculous rationale for not letting the protagonist "fuse" until the ass-end of the game? I find a side-character fusion a very, very lacklustre alternative, especially when compared side-by-side with Yuri in both SH1 & SH2.

[Holykael1]

I learned  "Graphical" or something as far as Scheme goes. I hated how it relied so much on recursive calls. Those were obnoxiously puzzley and dealing with strings, lists and things of the sort was way more complicated than it needed to be. Im still on the very basic levels of C++ so maybe I'll eat crow later.

x86 Intel assembly has less registers to work with, very specific rules attached to those registers, very specific rules in general and Im learning more complex algorithms with this assembly than I did with MIPS. I only learned MIPS assembly for like a few weeks, it was part of the Architecture and organization of computers subject, I was learning other things beforehand like Binary, Two's complement, circuitry, memory and architecture of one MIPS processor.

[Agent D.]

Cool news, hit a new high on my Bench Press record. 345 pounds.

Bad news, got in a small fight afterwards. I thought my knuckle broke again, but I just bruised my hand a bit. Barely hurts now, but it sucked last night. I can't even call it a fight really, long story short some asshat got in my face after doing something dumb which got me hurt and someone else disrupted. Been having a bad day so I lost my shit, threw him to the ground in the street and just started punching the shit out of him. Never seen him there before last night, so I dunno if he's a regular, but I'm sorta nervous if he's gonna come back and start problems. He did get up and run when a blaring siren came into view, which was when I stopped. Honestly,I was so wrecked from my workout idk how I managed to even push the asshole, nevermind do anything to him.

Gotta love NY, quiet evening working out leads to brawling in the middle of a street.

[Bytor]

sounds like a party, or maybe the end of one...

[Annubis]

Cool news, hit a new high on my Bench Press record. 345 pounds.

Bad news, got in a small fight afterwards. I thought my knuckle broke again, but I just bruised my hand a bit. Barely hurts now, but it sucked last night. I can't even call it a fight really, long story short some asshat got in my face after doing something dumb which got me hurt and someone else disrupted. Been having a bad day so I lost my shit, threw him to the ground in the street and just started punching the shit out of him. Never seen him there before last night, so I dunno if he's a regular, but I'm sorta nervous if he's gonna come back and start problems. He did get up and run when a blaring siren came into view, which was when I stopped. Honestly,I was so wrecked from my workout idk how I managed to even push the asshole, nevermind do anything to him.

Gotta love NY, quiet evening working out leads to brawling in the middle of a street.

Thank you for your confession.
No need to get up, we'll come and get you.
- Sincerely, the Police

[Agent D.]

Meh, he waited outside to start a fight, and he approached threateningly. No video, no witnesses, and no idea who he was...I'm not concerned with legal issues. I'm more concerned with him coming back with a few friends.