08 Jan 2008
Rare winter tornadoes rake Midwest

No storms here, but the weather has been nothing short of psychotic of late: last week it was below zero with snow cover- yesterday the high hit nearly 70°F. Today we're expecting more rain., which will make wading through the barnyard muck even more exciting!

AP - A freak cluster of tornadoes raked across an unseasonably warm Midwest, demolishing houses, knocking railroad cars off their tracks and even temporarily halting justice in one courthouse.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

07:50 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

Given that this is from a military site, not to mention the affiliations of the authors, it's no surprise that Ada is hyped as the supreme programming language. Which is bunk, as I've never seen Ada used anywhere outside of the defense or avionics industry. But they're right about the pitfalls of Java as a first language, and they're right about the general quality of a computer science education from American universities today.

Professionally, I've coded in C++, Pascal, C, BASIC, Perl, assembler, bash, Python, Prolog, Lisp, Javascript, and Java. I consider myself fluent in the first four, and passable in the rest. There's no such thing as a "one size fits all" language - you pick the right tool for the job. And that's the real skill that's not being taught these days - how to pick the right tool.

It is our view that Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the general adoption of Java as a first programming language is in part responsible for this decline. We examine briefly the set of programming skills that should be part of every software professional’s repertoire.

(link) [CrossTalk]

via Slashdot

07:42 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link