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I never know what it is they do and don't.
They're open minded about gay marriage and sex before marriage (or so I heard), but they don't celebrate birthdays because that's glorification of a person and only God may be glorified (or some such).
Only Jehovah's witnesses are more open minded about sex than about birthdays.
Although a friend told me about a colleague who was a Jehovah's witness and brought cake to celebrate her cats birthday... (never her own, but of course a cat is not a person).
And then they have to spread the word[^].
I've also heard they're kind of cultish in that you cannot leave or they'll never speak to you again (including family) and anyone who does is kicked out.
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Yes its true.
No birthday
No prayers
No xmas
No new year
No Thanksgiving to God even for keeping them through the year
No engagement in sports
No relationship with outsiders (we all unbelievers)
Yes to alcohol
Yes to bf/gf relationship
Yes to segregation
They are blinded. I've been there and I know the differences...practically
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Why? They are so much fun.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Some are, but they always come at the worst times.
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OriginalGriff wrote: Knock, Knock!
02:15, enough drinking for tonight, off for a shower and then bed.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Glad to hear you do shower !
cheers, Bill
«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008
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I did warn you not to play with that drill.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Who's there?
Will Rogers never met me.
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Hatch
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Gesundheit.
Knock knock...
Will Rogers never met me.
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Who's there?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Albany
Will Rogers never met me.
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*what have I started?*
Albany who?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Albany rabbits have fluffy white tails.
Don't blame me - you started it.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Roger Wright wrote: Don't blame me - you started it
I was bored!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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And I can't play ESO (Elder Scroll Online) because, server update!
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I'm sure you've seen this before or remember doing it yourself as a newbie. An assignment say something like "divide the array of bytes into groups of 4 bytes, then XOR all the groups" and the student thinks that means they have to make an byte[][] to hold thousands of tine 4-byte arrays, which is completely pointless but "the assignment said to do it". Or when explaining Huffman codes or such a "bitstring" is mentioned and the student thinks that means they should use a string to hold a bunch of "0" and "1" characters. Or the assignment says to translate a for -loop into assembly and they implement it in the most general and naive way even though it was just a "repeat 8 times"-kind of loop which has a much simpler implementation but they thought they wouldn't be allowed to use that because it's "not what the code says".
I'm not sure what to do about this. I've told a bunch of them that it's basically OK as long as it does the end result is the same, and that they should really just use a simple and/or efficient way to implement it. They're struggling with this whole "how you talk about what you're doing abstractly isn't literally how you code it up" thing though.
So, any ideas? How do I get this across properly?
inb4 "just make the assignment literal"; that's not how it will ever work in their careers. Besides, it complicates and spoils the assignment with the kind of implementation details that they should come up with.
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Isn't that the question every customer asks about their IT-staff?
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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harold aptroot wrote: How do I get this across properly?
I'm not actually sure what your point is. Maybe I'm taking you too literally. But in the abstract sense, programmers fall into two camps - those that can think creatively, and those that can't. Actually, three camps. The third camp is "WTF. I'm not doing this stupid assignment!" Those are the people you want to hire.
Marc
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And if they've got eggs, buy half a dozen.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It's because your instructions are to literal, "divide the array of bytes into groups of 4 bytes, then XOR all the groups": they are doing exactly what you asked them to do - and inasmuch deserve an A, whereas anybody doing any other / creative method is not following instructions and deserve to awarded a fail. You've not just removed the chance for creativity, you've stifled the opportunity. If "bitstring" trips them up, don't use those words until after the assignment, "turn a for loop into assembly and repeat 8 times," take away the "8".
Give them the possible input(s), the expected result(s), perhaps mention any common got-ya's, and sit back and let them create the solutions.
That's real work: boss/client tells you what, the how is entirely up to you - if they already know the how why do they need you?
Side note: As to processes such as Huffman coding I really hope you aren't expecting them to memorize such methods, google is as much a tool to a programmer (in fact any profession) as a hammer is to a builder or a mixing bowl to a baker - please don't fill the heads of students useless information that at best only 1 in 50000 will ever actually need.
Sin tack ear lol
Pressing the "Any" key may be continuate
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Robert den Hartog wrote: It's because your instructions are to literal Well no, that was part of my point. They use the descriptions that are typical for that abstraction level. You do divide that array into groups of 4 bytes, but only mentally. That is what they have to get used to, because descriptions of algorithms and data structures are always going to work that way.
But these examples are just examples. You're taking them too literally too.
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harold aptroot wrote: But these examples are just examples. You're taking them too literally too.
Agree, it's taken literally because that is what your instructions specify: 'take this, do this then do this then do this,' not 'take this and give me that.'
Yes you do need to give examples, but make the examples more abstract, instead of:
'take this array,
divide the array of bytes into groups of 4 bytes,
then xor those blocks like this'
instead (i.e. shown on blackboard / projector):
'using this data // show a string of data bytes
xor these 4 bytes, xor with this next 4 bytes, now draw some arrows 1 -> 5, 2 -> 6, 3 -> 7, 4 -> 8
then xor that with the next 4 bytes, (draw new dotted line arrows, 5 -> 9, 6 -> 10 ...)
repeat to the end'
It's your instructions that are are too explicit.
It's your instructions that are explicitly stifling creativity.
(And hold back a bit to see if any of the students have enough thought to ask about the length of data not being evenly divisible by 4 - and if so let them propose solutions before giving them an answer.)
Sin tack ear lol
Pressing the "Any" key may be continuate
modified 16-Oct-16 0:32am.
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But my entire point is that this not too explicit. This is precisely the level of "it looks like it's telling you to implement it a certain way, but you still shouldn't" that they should get used to. How are they going to get used to it if I go out of my way avoid the normal way of specifying these things?
Edit: to put it an other way, the problem is not that they're writing those solutions. The problem is that maybe half of them are not learning to see past the literal wording of an assignment, which is a skill they will need daily. So removing that aspect is the opposite of a solution.
modified 16-Oct-16 7:35am.
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While they may need to "learn to see past the literal wording", THIS is not a scenario in which such behavior is generally rewarded. When you are taking a programming class, and your instructor gives instructions that have a clear literal solution, providing anything else is usually a good way to get a bad grade. (Take my word for this as someone who had to challenge any number of professors on this point because of my "creative" solutions to their "literal" assignments. It usually boiled down to - Prof: "This doesn't do what I said!" Me: "Did you actually run my code?")
In other words, the instructions are "translate the for loop into assembly" NOT "provide the most efficient assembly that accomplishes the task represented by this for loop". Depending on the for loop provided, transliteration may indeed be the most efficient implementation. On the other hand, if the provided start, end, and increment values are constants, it might be most efficient to just repeat the code. You didn't provide enough information (to us) to determine which might be the case.
Or "break down this array into 4-byte blocks and XOR them" - starting with the fact that I have no idea WHY you want to do this. What are you actually testing with that particular assignment? Their ability to subdivide an array? Their understanding of XOR? Both? Neither and you just want them to give you a specific 4-byte result?
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