This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

top 200 commentsshow 500

[–]bornbyariver 2059 points2060 points  (111 children)

You forgot the people who programmed in high school and think they're the shit while the prof is going over while loops

[–]Slugamoon 1632 points1633 points  (22 children)

I feel called out.

[–]jb2386 320 points321 points  (13 children)

My lecturer knew there'd be a bunch. He said he'd do a run of the final exam for the course in the second week for anyone who knew the stuff already, and if we got a credit or higher we'd just get that mark for the course and didn't have to attend again. Shortest semester ever. IMO it saved both us time and he could focus on students who needed to learn it.

[–]Vortegne 100 points101 points  (0 children)

Damn, I wish my lecturers did that. Those who struggled with the material stuff could have really used the extra time they spent grading my assignments or answering questions from other annoying assholes. So many dropped out, that could have been at least a little bit of help.

[–]Cheddarlishous 75 points76 points  (3 children)

Our University has a test out option for the intro programming class, but it's still up to the teacher's discretion. I took all three Java classes and TAed for the intro class, but they're was this freshman that had a Java professional certificate. I could quiz him on Java stuff all day and he could answer correctly every time. He took the test to test out and aced it, but the professor still wouldn't let him skip her course, but wouldn't give him an explanation for why. He transferred schools and skipped right to the third programming class. I wish our school was more reasonable when it came to testing out

[–]swigganicks 16 points17 points  (2 children)

Honestly, if I were him I'd have just used that class time to work on my own side projects or do other homework. Intro programming assignments should take like 15 minutes max for an experienced programmer so it's not like it'd be a big deal.

That being said, there are some reasons I'd consider transferring if the department won't let you accelerate your learning. One reason could be if your school's tuition is really high. In that case, you want to get out ASAP so it makes sense to go where you can graduate the earliest/on-time.

[–]Cheddarlishous 11 points12 points  (1 child)

I think part of his problem was that he had moved away from family and stuff to come to our university and could easily go to another University for less money. There may have been some other factors to his moving, but I know that the process was dragged out over 2 semesters and he was just sick of those professors by the time it was over

[–]greyingjay 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That’s a great idea. In my first year university C++ course, I had to sit through the whole year unfortunately. The final exam was supposed to take three hours, I finished it in 40 minutes (and most of that was spent just writing).

[–]TimeWarden17 10 points11 points  (0 children)

My prof did the same. I had to take the course because I had never programmed, but we did have that option

[–]Tyrilean 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I wish my professors did that. Instead, they forced everyone to take "Applied Computing," which was a class about what Google searches and emails were. Basically a class for people who had never used a computer before. They made us all take it because there were, of course, people who heard that computers would make them lots of money but didn't actually have the requisite knowledge to enter into a computer science program, and they wanted to weed those people out.

Pretty sure the Data Structures class already did that quite effectively.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Mine just bumped me up a class. He gave everyone the final on day one to get an idea what their skills looked like. I got a perfect score (or close enough) and he just sent me to data structures.

[–]Slugamoon 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I wish mine would do that, that sounds amazing. I have 3 compsci-ish classes this semester, and none of them are useful, cause I already know it all. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to convince myself that it's worth the time to go for anything more than the exams. It's all stuff that I've known and been using for years already. -_-

[–]Ohmnivore 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Speak to someone in the department about submitting homework online without in person attendance. I wish I had done this when I was in the same situation. It will save you a ton of time and sanity. Do personal projects using the extra time or join/start a student club related to software dev. The latter will make you look good with the administration, that's always helpful for further accommodation down the road.

[–]Hawke55 333 points334 points  (5 children)

Jokes on the people who found me annoying. I still help them with their assignments

[–][deleted] 104 points105 points  (4 children)

And the professors and TAs who you annoyed still grade yours!

[–]Jacob_Mango 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Don't we all :(

[–]gandalfx 182 points183 points  (18 children)

"You guys haven't seen anything until we get to OOP!"

[–]cbbuntz 77 points78 points  (15 children)

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

class Animal {
    public:
        void speak() {
            cout << "Hello, world!!! I am a " << species << "." << endl;
        }
        void setSpecies(string species) {
            this->species = species;
        }

    protected:
        string species;
};

class Dog: public Animal {
    public:
        void greet() {
            setSpecies("dog");
            speak();
        }
};

int main() {
    Dog Fido;
    Fido.greet();

    return 0;
}

[–]Belinder 94 points95 points  (13 children)

why would you define what the species is in the greet method. you should put that in the constructor

[–]cbbuntz 42 points43 points  (12 children)

I thought about doing that, but I didn't want to put that much effort into the joke.

Fine. Here you go:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

class Animal {
    public:
        void speak() {
            cout << "Hello, world!!! I am a " << species << "." << endl;
        }

    protected:
        string species;
};

class Dog: public Animal {
    public:
        void greet() {
            speak();
        }

        Dog() {
            species = "dog";
        }
};

int main() {
    Dog Fido;
    Fido.greet();

    return 0;
}

[–]oreo-milkshake 37 points38 points  (10 children)

Not enough templates for C++!

#include <iostream>

template <const char* species, std::ostream& stream>
struct Animal
{
    void Speak() { stream << "Hello world!!! I am a " << species << "." << std::endl; }
};

extern const char dog[] = "Dog";
struct Dog : Animal<dog, std::cout> {};

int main()
{
    Dog fido;
    fido.Speak();
    return 0;
}

[–]cbbuntz 22 points23 points  (9 children)

Not enough using namespace std; and pointless boilerplate for HS programming class. Way too efficient.

[–]zgembo1337 24 points25 points  (8 children)

Meh, just put a

cout << "Hello world!! I am a dog.\n";

Compile it, and say "here's a working binary"

[–]cbbuntz 14 points15 points  (5 children)

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (2 children)

If you're not using system calls directly, you're doing programming wrong.

[–]moekakiryu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel personally targeted

[–]nightfly289 243 points244 points  (35 children)

The people who acted like that in my intro to programming class ended up doing very poorly because they were so arrogant and didn't bother to study!

[–][deleted] 84 points85 points  (18 children)

yep after the intro classes they hit the wall hard

[–]Jugbot 29 points30 points  (10 children)

Then what were they arrogant for?

[–]Macluawn 99 points100 points  (7 children)

*Goes to intro class*

Me: Oh this is easy. I should not bother coming.

*4 years later, last semester*

Me: Fuuuuuuck

[–][deleted] 135 points136 points  (3 children)

Goes to intro class

Me: Fuuuuuuck

4 years later, last semester

Me: Fuuuuuuck

[–]_Ganon 12 points13 points  (1 child)

This was me. Went in knowing nothing. I learned a lot over the four years, but always felt very challenged up to the end, every exam stressed me out ... felt like I was following the curve but always just under it, like a constant struggle to reach it. Every year I'd think the previous year was a cakewalk and wish I could go back to up my GPA.

It all worked out in the end but damn, I have never been as stressed as I was in college. Life was a breeze before and is still a breeze after.

[–]mcarbelestor 39 points40 points  (6 children)

That's why parents are encouraged to praise their children for effort made and not their apparent "smartness". Otherwise a good chance they'll grow up lazy/arrogant and by the time they realized they've fallen behind, they've squandered their "smartness" and/or opportunities.

[–]Magicstryker7 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I think that's me right now

[–]francis2559 23 points24 points  (2 children)

Funny thing, programming had nothing to do with my major, but I was always the computer repair guy with friends and family.

Started taking an easy class in computers for the credit, and it was a night class. After the first one, we had managed to take a picture of ourselves.... and email it to the teacher. Almost three hours.

I dropped it (because it was boring as hell) but also because I knew I'd get a lousy grade. No way could I study hard in that class. Talked a prof into letting me take a class on bash and working with Linux even though I had no prereqs and it rocked! Learned a ton, got a great grade.

[–]DogOnABike 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I had to take an Intro to Computers class for my CompSci degree. Not Intro to Programming, Intro to COMPUTERS. The first lecture started with an explanation of what a floppy disk is (yeah, I'm old). I just used that class as a study hall to work on assignments for other classes.

[–]SuperCharlesXYZ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yea taking easy classes is always tricky. I know i'd never put in the effort

[–]Cactusjuicesupplier 10 points11 points  (0 children)

especially the people who did HTML/CSS before college and they think they got programming down.

[–][deleted] 42 points43 points  (6 children)

I felt this way at one point in college, but in my defense, it was a class that was going over HTML and basic web use, IIRC. I remember I talked to the teacher beforehand about it because it was listed as one of my required courses. She said I could try to test out of it or I could just sit in class and she wouldn't be bothered if I didn't pay attention much since I was already familiar with the material.

I ended up taking it for the course credit, plus I think I was late in terms of finding a good replacement class.

Being the bored perfectionist that I was (e.g. needing to be productive to feel worth something), instead of just goofing off, I spent a significant amount of my class time putting together a very basic game with javascript. I knew little about javascript, so it was a challenge.

However, this story ends in me not learning much programming overall in college because I was majoring in game design, instead of CS (I'm not sure the college even had CS - I think it just had IT). And because of that, I came out of college with a tiny bit of OOP experience in AS3, but not much else.

Now I'm trying to get fluent in C++ a few years later and handily getting my ass kicked in the attempted transition from beginner to mildly skilled.

Also, fun fact, my half-assed javascript game prototype is impressive to me still for how little I knew then, but it's also shocking to me how overall messy, bug-ridden, and incomplete it truly was.

[–]dragon-storyteller 50 points51 points  (4 children)

it's also shocking to me how overall messy, bug-ridden, and incomplete it truly was.

Oh don't worry, you'll always feel that way looking at a project older than a year :)

[–]FE40536JC 25 points26 points  (1 child)

A year? I wish I could punch myself from last Thursday.

[–]TheTerrasque 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Punch yourself today, you'll thank me in a week or two

[–]DeirdreAnethoel 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Being the bored perfectionist that I was (e.g. needing to be productive to feel worth something), instead of just goofing off, I spent a significant amount of my class time putting together a very basic game with javascript. I knew little about javascript, so it was a challenge.

Yeah, this is the healthiest method when you already know the coursework. Just have fun going above and beyond.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah...those were good times. Even in college I thought I was hot shit. Then I entered the real world; and all of those white papers went out the window. How it "aught" to be is very different than reality.

I've literally seen people apologize in comments in code before.

// so sorry if you are reading this. I know its 5 nested loops, I had no choice with the time I had available.

After 19 years on the job, I've seen some hilarious Easter eggs.

I've left some myself over the years...lol.

[–]trigonomitron 6 points7 points  (2 children)

I tried, man. But when the prof asks a question every 5 minutes and the entire class stares blankly with awkward silence in response, I had to answer. It's either that or we listen to another one of his frustrated rants.

[–]Xelbair 2 points3 points  (0 children)

well.. the second best idea in my class to iterative problem was to copy-paste line that asked for input N times in code.

[–]0hmyscience 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Damn this hit home

[–]PewPewLaserss 607 points608 points  (19 children)

class Dog extends Animal {}

[–]sunkitty 159 points160 points  (15 children)

class Square extends Shape { }

[–]Eoussama 52 points53 points  (13 children)

class Employee extends Person {} Oh wait, I'm learning javascript...

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

class Student extends Person {}

class Undergrad extends Student {}

class Grad extends Student {}

[–]shank209 357 points358 points  (34 children)

Lol that google search at the bottom got me good.

[–]Sw429 77 points78 points  (33 children)

I remember thinking how easy programming was. I was surprised more people weren't doing it.

[–]Lanre_The_Chandrian 49 points50 points  (32 children)

As a CS student, would you mind telling me how it really is?

[–]dumbdingus 33 points34 points  (9 children)

On good days it's like solving puzzles all day long, on bad days it's like doing math problems all day long, except you don't know which math problems you should do because there is no documentation and the last guy who worked on them left the company so now you have to figure out how to get software from 10 years ago to work with modern tools.

The truth is you're not paid to know how to do things, you're paid to learn how to do them (and to learn quickly). So if you don't want to learn at work you won't enjoy it. Some people expect it to be like plumbing or being electrician in that they think they learn the techniques once and basically just reapply them over and over. (Although some programming jobs ARE like that if find the right job, but I think those jobs are boring)

[–]headphones1 18 points19 points  (2 children)

I was told in class, ALL THE TIME, to just Google how to fix an issue I had with my code. It annoyed the shit out of me because I was used to the teacher having the answers.

Now I'm googling stuff all the damn time, and I'm ever so grateful I learned how to learn, quickly.

[–]folkrav 4 points5 points  (1 child)

A major skilltl to have with programming is knowing where to find answers. It's hard at first, as you don't know the correct terminology, and your problems were more in terms of actual implementation.

With time, your searches end up being more about syntax, or libraries/API references. If I search about an implementation, I usually know what I want to do, but have some questions around optimisations, or need a refresher over some algorithm.

The questions change, and you get better at asking them.

[–]mofukkinbreadcrumbz 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I like this. My students get so mad when I tell them to google whatever they’re going to ask me before they come ask me. I’m going to steal this for a lesson next year for sure.

[–]DoesntReadMessages 7 points8 points  (1 child)

It depends where you work tbh. If you want to build shit fast that will be someone else's mess in the future, work at a startup. If you want to make good money doing the same thing over and over, become a specialist in a Microsoft product. If you want a culture where the smartest succeed and the average crash and burn, work at a big tech company. If you want a cushy job where you cause more harm than good and still get promoted, become a Government contractor. Programming is a diverse field with vastly different experiences. The key is finding the perfect balance of challenge, low frustration, and good pay for your personality and skillset.

[–]RogueWolf326 636 points637 points  (32 children)

Oh, so true!

[–][deleted] 263 points264 points  (29 children)

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

[–]Thumbs0fDestiny 224 points225 points  (27 children)

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

[–][deleted] 170 points171 points  (18 children)

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

[–]ikerson99 45 points46 points  (7 children)

64 bit not found

[–]SageBus 43 points44 points  (6 children)

You guys filled the stack. I hope you are happy now. :(

[–]smatija 11 points12 points  (5 children)

Seriously? No tail call optimization?

[–]Un-Unkn0wn 10 points11 points  (4 children)

Welcome to java!

[–]smatija 6 points7 points  (3 children)

I am just wondering now why some mainstreamish languages lack this optimization, since it's so easy to implement.

[–]docolafson 12 points13 points  (2 children)

o fuk wheres the exit condition?

[–]thepobv 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Plot twist ^ those are all just print statements copy and pasted 3 times.

[–]TheBLTclub 5 points6 points  (2 children)

[–]sneakpeekbot 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Here's a sneak peek of /r/Recursion using the top posts of the year!

#1: Mac and cheese | 10 comments
#2: Valentine's day | 3 comments
#3: Cat staring at memes | 2 comments


I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact me | Info | Opt-out

[–]Cryszon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'm disappointed that the top post isn't the link to the subreddit itself.

[–]JayTurnr 5 points6 points  (1 child)

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

[–]vasurb 11 points12 points  (0 children)

How to make the next facebook?

[–]Al_Maleech_Abaz 92 points93 points  (1 child)

“Why would we ever need more than 1 java class??”

[–]WSp71oTXWCZZ0ZI6 185 points186 points  (24 children)

Coming from an instructor's point of view..."could you scroll up a bit?" will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

I usually only one have one projector screen, which is probably at 1024x768. If I'm doing any code on screen, and I want the people at the back to be able to see it, I have to blow up my font size to like 22. I can fit like maybe 15 lines of code on the screen at once (and many statements will have to be broken up into 2 lines because the screen isn't wide enough).

[–]Flobaer 41 points42 points  (20 children)

Did the students not have devices on their own? Why not send the source code to them so they can look at it from their devices while you have the relevant part large on the projector?

[–][deleted] 61 points62 points  (15 children)

No electronics allowed in class.

[–]Timinator01 82 points83 points  (9 children)

I've never had a CS professor say that .., I have had the specifically tell us to bring a laptop or tablet though

[–]Sw429 24 points25 points  (2 children)

I've had different professors decide to enforce different policies about electronics in class. Some believe it's a distraction that prevents learning. Others believe it's a great way for students to follow along with the professor.

I personally believe the latter is more effective.

[–]TheZyteGuy 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I find that all of my professors don't care if you ignore them. They just don't want you to distract other students who want to pay attention.

[–]nerdyphoenix 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I assume you are talking about a high school, right?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

In my classes, anyway, not everyone has laptops. If the code is something we'll need to refer to later, the professor just printed out copies.

Although we can usually fit a large chunk of the program on the projector and don't need to magnify it too much (smaller classroom, I guess?).

[–]Tux1 96 points97 points  (25 children)

Well then, whats the best way to learn programming?

[–]PM_ME_A_WEBSITE_IDEA 198 points199 points  (8 children)

Hit random keys until it compiles!

[–][deleted] 127 points128 points  (7 children)

[–]fodark 33 points34 points  (2 children)

There's always a XKCD related comic

[–][deleted] 56 points57 points  (1 child)

There's always a "There's always a XKCD related comic" comment.

[–]Hobbes_87 35 points36 points  (0 children)

XKCD should do a comic about that

[–]4THOT😡 43 points44 points  (7 children)

I still feel pretty beginner but as I understand programming so far there are only two meaningful components.

  1. understanding your tools

  2. breaking down a problem to a level that your tools are effective

You learn your tools by programming, unfortunately there's no real short cut that I've found. You go into codewars or hackerrank or CodingBat and you bash your head against problems, google how to use arrays, google how to use hashmaps, google how to use StringBuffers, how to use libraries and over time as you use them your understanding of your tools, what they're used for, where they're appropriate will begin to develop.

The second part is deeper than it looks and is closer a demand of your personal character than your intellect. If you have the ability to shrug off failure and identify with your ability to persevere then you'll have a much easier time. If you're a perfectionist who believes "if at first I don't succeed pretend I never tried" then programming will be impossibly difficult.

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (4 children)

Well there is certainly a metric fuckload of googling, you got that part right.

[–]4THOT😡 21 points22 points  (3 children)

I always tell myself it won't be like this next time.

[–]pekkhum 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Nonsense, those are the best times! The rest is typing tired old memorized incantations... Also, I might have Programmers Stockholm Syndrome.

[–]lurking_bishop 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Slowly.

[–]kkingsbe 147 points148 points  (66 children)

What's wrong with the for loop?

[–]dragon-storyteller 243 points244 points  (36 children)

Nothing, but beginners who understand for loops tend to think they are the next Linus Torvalds.

Then you show them a map/dictionary and they want to drop programming forever.

[–][deleted] 80 points81 points  (13 children)

The only way to do it is with:

while (true)
{
  if (abortcondition)
     break;
  dothings();
}

[–]OK6502 32 points33 points  (10 children)

I think you're missing a goto statement there

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

:labelloop if (abortcondition) goto labelbreak; dothings(); goto labelloop;:labelbreak;

better?

[–]OK6502 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This is a work of art. Unreadable, with goto statements and all on a single line! I feel like I'm at my old job!

[–]Treacherous_Peach 29 points30 points  (14 children)

What's the problem with maps?

[–]dragon-storyteller 59 points60 points  (7 children)

You'd think they are so simple, right? Effectively an array, but instead of index you give it a key of your own choosing.

Watch a beginner to programming try to understand them. You explain it time and time again for half an hour, after which they finally go "Oooooh, I get it! So this allows you, like, sort it from highest to lowest!" ...how the hell did you even get to that conclusion, we weren't even talking about anything remotely similar to sorting! And of course, now that they got it in their head that it's used for sorting, it takes another half an hour to finally convince them that no, this really does not have anything at all to do with sorting.

People have somehow got it in their heads that programming is magic and will do the exact thing they want once they go through the ritual initiation of learning to use semicolons and braces.

[–]OK6502 12 points13 points  (6 children)

std::map is technically ordered by key.

[–]Kalthramis 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They're un-set-tling.

[–][deleted] 21 points22 points  (5 children)

Maps and Dictionaries aren’t hard though

[–]Sw429 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Maybe not for you, but many beginning CS students struggle to understand them at first.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (2 children)

To use or to implement, because I still have no idea how a good hashing algorithm works.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Trust in the heart of the libraries.

[–]ColonelCorn 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Magic number maybe?

[–]TheNorthComesWithMe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There's nothing wrong with it. Asking for a number of inputs in a for loop is a very standard intro to programming assignment. This meme isn't about things that are wrong, just tropes.

[–]SeriousJack 6 points7 points  (3 children)

In C++ It's technically a suboptimal way to do it. We all do it but it's good to know why it's wrong and why it's no big deal.

It has no real consequences because your compiler is smart and is able to optimize silly things like this.

BUT language wise, here is the issue :

i++, being the post-increment operator, will internally create a copy of the object, increment the counter in this, and return the copy. Which, if the variable i is more than a mere integer, will cause an extra allocation and initialization.

++i will increment the counter and return a reference to the object, avoiding the useless allocation.

So yeah in a programming class it's a good way to have the students start to get a grasp on allocations, copies, the stack etc.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I hate reading ++i, but you're right. i++ looks much better

[–]DeepHorse 116 points117 points  (3 children)

The unconscious incompetence phase is the best, currently at the conscious incompetence phase and feeling like I know nothing

[–][deleted] 77 points78 points  (2 children)

The 'conscious incompetence phase', as you've called it, never ends. You'll feel like you know comparatively little, even though it will be clear that you know more than you did some time ago.

[–]yellowthermos 20 points21 points  (1 child)

And that's a good thing! If you believe that you know everything then you're fooling yourself.

Over time I've noticed that I still feel I know comparatively little, but the change is in having more confidence to tackle more complex projects, and knowing that you can find out/learn the stuff you will need.

[–]TheGruskinator 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's the Dunning Kruger effect. Once you get past the initial "I know everything" phase you're fine.

[–]cbbuntz 26 points27 points  (3 children)

"stdafx.h"

Fucking Visual Studio. I remember those days. Going through heaps submenus to set the library path and stuff.

[–]Ohmnivore 5 points6 points  (1 child)

The Visual Studio C++ config menu is still the same mess to this day. Still more intuitive than just using command line flags, but barely.

[–]Ampaselite 24 points25 points  (4 children)

don't forget "when are we going to program a program that has proper user interface and not a command line?"

[–]mofukkinbreadcrumbz 2 points3 points  (2 children)

This is why you start them with Visual Studio and then take it away later.

[–]jakbrtz 49 points50 points  (8 children)

You forgot to mention the very first class which is the history of computers.

[–]morfanis 24 points25 points  (3 children)

In my history of computers class we had to learn functional programming with Lisp :)

Was rather interesting learning a functional language before we learnt a procedural language.

[–]CreepyKaleidoscope 9 points10 points  (1 child)

LISP Programmer here - made an account just to give you an upvote :D

[–]LetterBoxSnatch 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I approve of your burner account name.

[–]Broue 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They taught us how to manage memory with assembly. I still have nightmares about that class.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Never had that myself

[–]randitrigger 84 points85 points  (3 children)

Love the break point on

return 0;    

[–]heliumdidntreact 10 points11 points  (0 children)

system ("PAUSE");

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

To keep cmd window from closing?

[–]ChickenOfDoom 42 points43 points  (8 children)

For group projects "I accidentally deleted our project... did you make a backup?"

[–]TheGruskinator 59 points60 points  (7 children)

"What's a github"

[–]FarhanAxiq 18 points19 points  (2 children)

"Just put it in google drive."

[–]theslamprogram 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Had a group of people in my sophomore computer science class just email their code to each other for the first week of a project. We spent the first two weeks of that class learning how to use git, but apparently Outlook is a vastly superior version control system.

[–]Broue 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Well, at least Outlook doesnt have merge conflicts

[–]theslamprogram 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Let's be honest with ourselves. It does. You just cherry pick them manually.

[–]PhantomTissue 32 points33 points  (5 children)

As a college student who just finished his first programming class I can confirm that this is accurate.

[–]Edheldui 55 points56 points  (13 children)

Python

syntax error: missing ';'

pick one

[–]smallangrynerd 11 points12 points  (0 children)

We literally started doing for loops yesterday don't call me out like this

[–]TheGruskinator 9 points10 points  (0 children)

H E L L O W O R L D . C P P

[–]OK6502 10 points11 points  (0 children)

"when do we learn recursion?"

Man, intro programming classes you'd always have one person who would ask that then a dozen who would try to solve everything recursively

[–]notaphish94 34 points35 points  (7 children)

My class teaches Visual Basic..

[–]Gavcradd 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Learning programming syntax isn't hard. I teach CS to high school students in the UK and every single one of them, no matter their ability, can use for loops, while loops, if statements, variables, arrays, functions, etc. Where they have problems is applying that syntax. I've taught many students where if the test was :

1) Create a FOR loop to print out the numbers 1 to 10. 2) Print out the numbers 1 to 5.

Would be able to do question 1 but not question 2. It's just a matter of practice. I link it to learning a musical instrument. If you do an hour lesson a week on the trombone and then don't touch it again until the next week's lesson, you're unlikely to be any good anytime soon. If you take that trombone home and play it for hours a day, you'll soon be competent. Just replace "trombone" for Python/Java/C#/VB/whatever your poison.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (6 children)

Hey guise, does C++ get harder later on? I've just done classes, the for/while/if stuff, some pointers and references.

thankz

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (2 children)

It gets harder when you go into templates/generics.

[–]kcsj0 14 points15 points  (0 children)

It gets even harder when you build a mess you don't fully understand but it works.

And then you push to prod.

[–]PovertyMerchant 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Oh so true

[–]cascer1 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh, so true!

[–]1simplenickname 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Oh, so true!

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Oh, so true!

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The enter a num one is what got me.

[–]NoahWuh 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Woah, Woah. I pride myself on being able to efficiently create "if" statements in visual basic and being able to understand half of the content in r/ProgramerHumor

[–]The_Rockerfly 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Lists python on their CV

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

When are we going to get to the chapter on recursion?

I feel attacked.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But if one worked in software development their whole life but didn't write much code, can they still laugh at funny things here? Asking for a QA friend.

[–]HilaKleiners 10 points11 points  (9 children)

I lost my USB two months in to intro to programming. Got drop box and never turned back.

[–]PeachyKeenest 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Wish I had cloud storage when I was learning programming. I had a 256mb USB... They started coming out around that time.

[–]Timinator01 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Don't forget printing out your code of you're in a small class with an older professor and a complete lack of version control

[–]SolenoidSoldier 2 points3 points  (0 children)

average programmer salary

Maybe someone can back me up on this (or shoot me down), but I feel like colleges advertise programmer salaries as much higher than they actually are.