On Mon, May 07, 2012 at 07:21:54PM +0200, Paulo Pinto wrote: [...] > I have spent a huge time in the university learning about compiler > development, reading old books and papers from the early computing > days. > > So in a general way, and not directed to you now, I saddens me that a > great part of that knowledge is lost to most youth nowadays. > > Developers get amazed with JavaScript JIT compilation, and yet it > already existed in Smalltalk systems. > > Go advertises fast compilation speeds, and they were already available > to some language systems in the late 70's, early 80's. > > We are discussing storing module interfaces directly in the library > files, and most seem to never heard of it. > > And the list goes on. > > Sometimes I wonder what do students learn in modern CS courses. [...]
Way too much theory and almost no practical applications. At least, that was my experience when I was in college. It gets worse the more prestigious the college is, apparently. I'm glad I spent much of my free time working on my own projects, and doing _real_ coding, like actually use C/C++ outside of the trivial assignments they hand out in class. About 90% of what I do at my job is what I learned during those free-time projects. Only 10% or maybe even less is what I got from CS courses. T -- The two rules of success: 1. Don't tell everything you know. -- YHL