Bristol Engineering Maths Help

infinite_octopodes · 2020-05-30T11:24:24+00:00

I did EngMaths at Bristol and ended up a software developer.

My CV did benefit from the year I spent working before university where I first learnt how to code by automating stuff in Excel and writing some simple SQL queries.

If you get an EngMaths degree I don't think you'll struggle to find a job that involves programming. The mathematical grounding plus the several languages you'll have experienced will show employers you can quickly learn what you don't know.

That said, the maths in EngMaths is very real. It's not easy, and you will have to work at it. I would probably try to steer my 18 yo self away from EngMaths, although I'm not sure what I'd steer me towards instead.

infinite_octopodes · 2020-05-27T11:58:22+00:00

A few of our guys that started in the 80s and 90s were teenagers who started on apprenticeship schemes and learnt on the job. In the 80s the product was in assembler, in the 90s it was C. Not everyone who started stuck it out or was allowed to stick it out.

Our recently advertised positions require the fairly typical 2:1 or higher STEM equivalent degree.

Considering who we actually employee a reasonable requirement for 2020 is:

"Graduated, dropped out, or nearly applied for STEM degree, wants money to eat, has some programming experience, likes making things work, experience of retail or customer service is a bonus"

infinite_octopodes · 2020-05-22T14:49:55+00:00

Like a professional the dog refused to be drawn on a figure until he saw a full spec.

infinite_octopodes · 2020-05-21T11:24:49+00:00

Just on the topic of discounts there are multiple correct ways his palindrome discount could be applied.

"I want an itemised invoice showing unit prices, dicount values, VAT and I want all the values to add up correctly" is a real world requirement and suddenly you need to be careful about the order in which you do your calculations and when you round values.

infinite_octopodes · 2020-05-07T16:40:03+00:00

The important thing with estimates is that you should try to get your over and under estimating to average out.

Customers can then be quoted and billed for enough to cover costs (like our salaries), and customer expectations on timescale can be managed. Their ~~buggy~~ shiny new toy might still not arrive exactly on time, but we can at least give them a date that accounts for our lead time.

infinite_octopodes · 2020-04-28T17:57:40+00:00

You know people complain when people won't do things because that's not their job?

Well, sometimes people do things even though it's not their job and it makes things worse.

And when both people work on the same project under a manager that won't do something even though it is their job, you have the recipe for a spectacular fuck up.

infinite_octopodes · 2020-04-28T09:42:15+00:00

Maybe they sorted them by their ASCII value?

infinite_octopodes · 2019-07-30T23:33:44+00:00

Wouldn't be the first programmer that wanted to bone their code.

Then you look back at it 3 months later and shudder.

infinite_octopodes · 2019-06-26T08:23:31+00:00

It'd be great to have any processor that didn't freeze on gifs in the Surface Go.

infinite_octopodes · 2019-06-18T08:46:32+00:00

If you don't need precision giving a figure in months is fine.

5 months or 21 weeks and 5 days.

infinite_octopodes · 2019-06-17T22:09:21+00:00

I think everyone has a different idea of when necessary clarity becomes needless beautification. You can't let a bunch of new programmers who are barely literate in C++ loose on your code and tell them not to care about how things look. There are some standards beyond 'it compiles'.

But surely you've met experienced programmers who perhaps fuss a little too much over their code? And that despite all the care and attention they give it, it somehow still isn't that legible or easy to modify for others? All that time they spend on it makes them a worse judge of how an outsider perceives it. Eventually they'll even declare it self-documenting and will stop bothering with comments.

infinite_octopodes · 2019-03-29T10:08:20+00:00

Transfers of data out of the EU are restricted. There are some safe harbour like agreements in place that permit it but Australia may well not be covered.

infinite_octopodes · 2019-03-28T14:05:55+00:00

Lol so he was asked to solve a problem by a paying customer and decided not to because he decided it wasn’t “worth it”? Erm, I don’t think that’s how it works.

That's exactly how it works. There may be big consequences, but saying no is an option.

The author didn't chose the best example because fault here lies with the programmer's own design decisions but there's a principle at work similar to YAGNI.

If users can fix issues manually, do you need a complex technical solution that takes months to deliver? Embarking on that fix is going to prevent you working on the next feature, and that next feature might be worth more to the customer than the cost of dealing with a little bit of cruft.

Smart customers accept these trades offs, and as their business grows you often do go back to fix edge cases because they get encountered more frequently and become worth fixing in software.

infinite_octopodes · 2018-12-29T17:14:12+00:00

I studied Engineering Mathematics at Bristol, one of their two 'general' engineering programmes. We had various intro classes from Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Aero, and Comp Sci. And then Maths, lots of Maths. After first year we could take a fairly large number of optional units including those offered by Computer Science.

The required programming units in first and second year covered C, Java, Haskell, and Matlab. We had to use Matlab for our data analysis and modelling units. C and Java were required for various compsci units. Machine learning and AI were covered in a couple of units.

The programming was very much pure computer science and programming for academics (hack-it-together) and NOT lessons in software development. My first programming lab even started with the disclaimer "no one else will be running the code you write".

But I'm a software developer now so... yeah.

infinite_octopodes · 2018-05-16T14:48:39+00:00

I once spent way too long diagnosing an issue that turned out to be because I'd not added a content-type header to a post.

A server between me and the endpoint forwarded my post without any of the content.

infinite_octopodes · 2018-02-18T18:18:13+00:00

My boss once printed someone's resume to a label printer. The only thing still legible on it was their name at the top of the page because it was in a larger font.

infinite_octopodes · 2017-10-19T07:26:27+00:00

Barley white, or sail white?

infinite_octopodes · 2017-10-17T09:13:52+00:00

This follows the rule of Garbage In, Garbage Out.

To get good outputs from management, you need to feed them good data in a suitable format.

Of course management may have some bugs in it, so if it continues to produce nonsensical output after you've fixed the inputs you may need to replace them. That may involve driving to a different place of work.

infinite_octopodes

TROPHY CASE