iRichiepoo

I’m excited to see the Canadarm back in action!

Can you change the default search engine to Google?

Hey, Bill Nguyen!

You spelled colour wrong.

Real truck drivers drive stick.

Nope, but I’m sure Nilay taunts him all the time with his nintendo 3DS.

It’s about time the cyber-security guy resigned, with the US government stuff getting hacked left right and center.

(or it seems like there’s a lot of hacking going on, but I guess nobody really knows)

I don’t think programming should be mandatory. We should concentrate on developing students who can string a sentence together or write a comment with correct spelling and punctuation. It should definitely be available for students though (I am one of them). It is or will be an important skill for a set of students, the types who want to become scientists or engineers.

In terms of teaching programming at a school, there should be a focus on diversity (there is in everything else, right?). I mean, students should get an overview of types of programming so they can decide what they like best. I, for example, can’t wrap my head around desktop programming (objective-C or python). Languages designed for the desktop don’t speak to me. There are too many external functions, and things you send parameters to to make them work, and everything seems too segmented.

On the other hand, I love writing embedded C (my hobby is electronics, so I program AVR microcontrollers). I can do everything (or mostly everything) myself, meaning I’m not using somebody else’s functions or routines. Obviously, you’re not going to do the same things with embedded as you are with languages meant for the desktop. I’m not going to be creating an app here.

My school offers a CS course, which I’m taking next year, though I know what it’s about already from speaking to friends. The language is Java, which I have messed around with a little bit at home. I know the class will be good for experience, but it isn’t really what I want to be doing. It would be great if classes could offer more than just Java, because that might deter less kids from getting into coding. Examples would be embedded, for people like me, or HTML/CSS (I know, I know, they’re markup) for kids who want to make websites. These need not be in separate classes, the choice just needs to be there.

Not everybody can code, not everybody should code, but for the people who are interested, there should be some more options from the education system. I like embedded, and I like web (I’ve got a good knowledge of HTML/CSS and a bit of PHP) but for me, I can’t do desktop for very long. I’ve got a friend with an app on the app store, with a small knowledge of HTML, but who didn’t know what a microcontroller or embedded C was. See, everybody’s different when it comes to their computer preferences, and this “to teach or not to teach” argument doesn’t reflect that. Let the kids code, and help them. Let the runners run and the ballers ball. And let the others sort out what they want to do.

Why do the PC manufacturers need a standard in place to make good products?

I don’t even know what I’d do with a machine as powerful as the new MBPs. I’m often surprised at what 64mb of VRAM shared with the main memory will do. I guess I’d do a lot less waiting for stuff to process.

Macbook 1, 1 forever!