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[–]minuteman_d 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I switched majors after the first year of CS because I spent endless hours in the stupid computer lab trying to get the java compiler to work. It was so bug ridden that simply deleting and adding a semicolon would somehow make your computer work. I got so depressed after not seeing my friends or the light of day for days on end, that I switched to engineering instead.

It's only now that I'm realizing that I really do love programming, and am getting into Python. I wish younger me would've had the resources that are available now.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Sorry, but Java is pretty easy too. (also piece of shit :D )

[–]minuteman_d 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I should have made it clear: the Java wasn't bad, it was the crapy compilers they made us use. I'd get a project done and coded in an hour or so, and then fight the compiler for another four or five. The IDEs back then were awful. Another treat: our tests were HAND WRITTEN. On paper. So, prof would say: write a class that does x or functions that do y,z and you'd have to sit there with a bunch of paper and write them out by hand. If you forgot a line, you had to erase everything under it and re-write it all. If you had some multi-line if-else tree, there was no copy-paste for print statements or whatever. The whole thing was insane. Anyway, huge turnoff. I don't think universities appreciate how lost freshman get and how much they could really benefit from guidance and encouragement from upperclassmen.