5 ms·

> The dude's in high school and finds stuff like this? Man, you should have seen the european demoscene in the 90s, half of the geniuses had the same main obst

by nolok 6y ago

> The dude's in high school and finds stuff like this? Man, you should have seen the european demoscene in the 90s, half of the geniuses had the same main obstacle: homework from school. Despite what it may seem IT is still in its infancy which means that we work in a field where pure affinity for the subject and raw curiosity-driven brain power (or in some case, dedication to the task), as well as a couple hundred euros worth of hardware, is enough to get into the most complex parts and sometime redefine them. Access to all the papers and education you need is insanly open on the internet (unlike other fields), as well as trillions of line of code for you to explore. The only two limits are yourself, and time. Which is not to say that training and experience have no role, but IT as a field is extremly large and for many parts we're still in an early uncharted phase, so discovery is made by explorers and dedicated people[1]. Still, most dev would gain a lot by going through a good algorithmic course. [1] While talking about dedication, special mention to the linux everywhere guys. I will never not smile at the idea that some of the best IT protections in the world, costing millions upon millions, from the Xbox to HD-DVD to whatever, were brought down because someone wanted to run it on linux.

paulpauper 6y ago
this is more like front-end dev than IT
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  Information Technology is technology that involves information manipulation and storage. Development and software engineering are subsets of IT, infrastructure maintenance is another.
  - setr 6y ago
    Computer Science has nothing to do with computers, or science. It is generally a mistake to read the name of something as defining that thing — it has almost certainly shifted meaning since it’s origin, especially if someone is arguing about it.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      I disagree with you there. In Computer Science, you learn the science(determined truth) of computation(the act of mathematical calculation). The names of most degree programs are pretty accurate when you really parse the jargon.
- owlmirror 6y ago
  front-end dev squarely falls into the realm of IT. What's your motivation to separate or "gatekeep" these fields?
  - hnick 6y ago
    IT is often used as a term referring to the more practical side of things - infrastructure management, sysadmin, and helpdesk type work. It's not really a limitation that I subscribe to but it's hardly uncommon. Maybe they were using that definition.
    - paulpauper 6y ago
      that is what I was getting at. I worked with someone in IT and their main focus was on preventing system from being exploited and helping people with their credentials or if other problems arose. I don't recall any coding work such as the actual functioning of the site. Their focus was more about keep the severs running.
    - blocked_again 6y ago
      In USA. Yes. But America only accounts for 4.1% of world population. So.
    - shagie 6y ago
      One of the companies that I've worked at in the past had software developers in three main different departments. There were developers in the classic engineering department - creating the product that gets sold. That's an easy one. There were developers in the customer support department. This group was known as 'sustaining engineering' and developed the tools for the rest of the customer support department to use to diagnose and troubleshoot issues... along with identifying bugs that one customer has in the software (and then creating patch releases for those customers). They had some really interesting problems solved there like "how do you set up a remote debugger to look at a core file that is greater than 2gb in size?" There were also developers in the IT department. Along with the sysadmins, DBAs, an helpdesk... the "Internal Business Applications" team was the one that maintained the corporate site, or did projects for other departments that didn't have the headcount for a full time developer of their own (sales department and the cornfugraiton tool). Developers also were the ones that did updates to the ERP and CRM systems. The customer support website was maintained as part of this. So... the point is that IT can certainly encompass software developers. You'll often see this on various job sites - all of the computer technology jobs tend to get categorized under IT unless the company has a technology product of their own (and then separates it by engineering and IT).
mlang23 6y ago
Thanks for mentioning the demoscene. While I was never really involved, I learnt about self modifying i386 assembly code from a 15 year old. I was roughly the same age back then. And we were both writing asm at that time, so actually employed the technique, not just knew what it was. Compare that to what gets done in school, and you see how far away from the real thing our education system is.
- linspace 6y ago
  I think the consensus is that it is better for the whole of society to make sure the bottom 5% makes it through that for the top 5% of the class to fulfill their potential. It's not that I don't understand what you are saying. I was at the top in school and also as a parent I notice how removed education is from... beauty? It's just that economy dictates the rules. Also, teaching is hard.
  - eru 6y ago
    Why do those two 5% have to be in the same class?
    - bradstewart 6y ago
      How do you identify the students which belong in the separate classes, and at what age do you do it?
      - PeterisP 6y ago
        As long as you permit or even enforce periodic rotation between the "tracks" when appropriate given the performance/speed of learning, you might as well start early.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        It's not uncommon for students to switch between top 5% and bottom 5% - yet people act as if its static. Education and chid development are ridiculously complex. It's not possible to have a solution that solves for everyone.
arthur_sav 6y ago
Curiosity, time and an open mind is all you need. Teens have plenty of that.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  "Time" is something I rarely had as a teenager, and that was more than 15 years ago at this point. On top of all the normal high school-age pressures, I had tennis, martial arts, drum lessons, weekend volunteering, AND an unquenchable passion for computers. And with good grades and AP classes, all that got me nowhere higher than state universities. Whatever it would have taken for me to get better than that, it wouldn't have been worth it. I can't imagine what it's like for kids now. It must be hellishly difficult trying to find time for themselves. Gen-Z already is aware that they will not fare much better than me, at best. It must be tough being a kid today.
  - bipson 6y ago
    There are different "paths" with different environments (parents). I had plenty of time, and my parents were rather open regarding hobbies/extracurricular activities. But they soon had "given up" on making me do thigs, caused by me quitting everything that wasn't novel and dismissing their "inputs". My father is also a generalist, and was never keen on getting focused on single skills (he has some mad skills on some fields though, e.g. swimming, and that took quite some time and effort). And although we were not poor, my father thought that hobbies don't have to be expensive, quite the opposite for kid's hobbies in fact (but we had our fair share of expensive hobbies and gear: snowboarding and bikes and unicycles and sailing and what not). But most prominently, being a kid of the eighties, and dur to my parents working with "IT-People" in their job, they thought computers were not at all a desirable past time for a kid/teenager (despite my very urgent interest). A waste of time, either toy or nerd-tool. Somewhat what people previously thought of books. So my biggest interest (programming) was always something I was myself dismissing and even avoiding for a few very important years, and I spent most of my time as a teenager in front of a TV, gaming or partying/meeting with friends outdoors. I could have spent that time... differently, and I am not blaming anyone, not my parents and not me. I had a good time, but I might have appreciated a little guidance/company. I just want to say I know why I was not a mad hacker at 17 - small details in paths are waiting everywhere, and there are more exceptions than rules.
PhillyG 6y ago
Technology and development is an area of constant growth, pretty much by definition. A technology can't be the latest and greatest technology without pushing the boundaries. Companies who market themselves as innovators, have to, well, push innovations. Frameworks and developer tools keep appearing and being added to because they can exist to help others innovate. Individual developers who want to make sure that their skills are up to date, have to keep learning new skills as new ones appear. There are so many different bits of hardware and software out there now, and possible ways and benefits to integrating with them or supporting them; that even just working on a given project for a while with broad enough vision, might see you having to learn lots of different things

by nolok 6y ago

paulpauper 6y ago

this is more like front-end dev than IT

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
Information Technology is technology that involves information manipulation and storage. Development and software engineering are subsets of IT, infrastructure maintenance is another.
- setr 6y ago
  Computer Science has nothing to do with computers, or science. It is generally a mistake to read the name of something as defining that thing — it has almost certainly shifted meaning since it’s origin, especially if someone is arguing about it.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    I disagree with you there. In Computer Science, you learn the science(determined truth) of computation(the act of mathematical calculation). The names of most degree programs are pretty accurate when you really parse the jargon.
owlmirror 6y ago
front-end dev squarely falls into the realm of IT. What's your motivation to separate or "gatekeep" these fields?
- hnick 6y ago
  IT is often used as a term referring to the more practical side of things - infrastructure management, sysadmin, and helpdesk type work. It's not really a limitation that I subscribe to but it's hardly uncommon. Maybe they were using that definition.
  - paulpauper 6y ago
    that is what I was getting at. I worked with someone in IT and their main focus was on preventing system from being exploited and helping people with their credentials or if other problems arose. I don't recall any coding work such as the actual functioning of the site. Their focus was more about keep the severs running.
  - blocked_again 6y ago
    In USA. Yes. But America only accounts for 4.1% of world population. So.
  - shagie 6y ago
    One of the companies that I've worked at in the past had software developers in three main different departments. There were developers in the classic engineering department - creating the product that gets sold. That's an easy one. There were developers in the customer support department. This group was known as 'sustaining engineering' and developed the tools for the rest of the customer support department to use to diagnose and troubleshoot issues... along with identifying bugs that one customer has in the software (and then creating patch releases for those customers). They had some really interesting problems solved there like "how do you set up a remote debugger to look at a core file that is greater than 2gb in size?" There were also developers in the IT department. Along with the sysadmins, DBAs, an helpdesk... the "Internal Business Applications" team was the one that maintained the corporate site, or did projects for other departments that didn't have the headcount for a full time developer of their own (sales department and the cornfugraiton tool). Developers also were the ones that did updates to the ERP and CRM systems. The customer support website was maintained as part of this. So... the point is that IT can certainly encompass software developers. You'll often see this on various job sites - all of the computer technology jobs tend to get categorized under IT unless the company has a technology product of their own (and then separates it by engineering and IT).

mlang23 6y ago

Thanks for mentioning the demoscene. While I was never really involved, I learnt about self modifying i386 assembly code from a 15 year old. I was roughly the same age back then. And we were both writing asm at that time, so actually employed the technique, not just knew what it was. Compare that to what gets done in school, and you see how far away from the real thing our education system is.

linspace 6y ago
I think the consensus is that it is better for the whole of society to make sure the bottom 5% makes it through that for the top 5% of the class to fulfill their potential. It's not that I don't understand what you are saying. I was at the top in school and also as a parent I notice how removed education is from... beauty? It's just that economy dictates the rules. Also, teaching is hard.
- eru 6y ago
  Why do those two 5% have to be in the same class?
  - bradstewart 6y ago
    How do you identify the students which belong in the separate classes, and at what age do you do it?
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      As long as you permit or even enforce periodic rotation between the "tracks" when appropriate given the performance/speed of learning, you might as well start early.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      It's not uncommon for students to switch between top 5% and bottom 5% - yet people act as if its static. Education and chid development are ridiculously complex. It's not possible to have a solution that solves for everyone.

arthur_sav 6y ago

Curiosity, time and an open mind is all you need. Teens have plenty of that.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
"Time" is something I rarely had as a teenager, and that was more than 15 years ago at this point. On top of all the normal high school-age pressures, I had tennis, martial arts, drum lessons, weekend volunteering, AND an unquenchable passion for computers. And with good grades and AP classes, all that got me nowhere higher than state universities. Whatever it would have taken for me to get better than that, it wouldn't have been worth it. I can't imagine what it's like for kids now. It must be hellishly difficult trying to find time for themselves. Gen-Z already is aware that they will not fare much better than me, at best. It must be tough being a kid today.
- bipson 6y ago
  There are different "paths" with different environments (parents). I had plenty of time, and my parents were rather open regarding hobbies/extracurricular activities. But they soon had "given up" on making me do thigs, caused by me quitting everything that wasn't novel and dismissing their "inputs". My father is also a generalist, and was never keen on getting focused on single skills (he has some mad skills on some fields though, e.g. swimming, and that took quite some time and effort). And although we were not poor, my father thought that hobbies don't have to be expensive, quite the opposite for kid's hobbies in fact (but we had our fair share of expensive hobbies and gear: snowboarding and bikes and unicycles and sailing and what not). But most prominently, being a kid of the eighties, and dur to my parents working with "IT-People" in their job, they thought computers were not at all a desirable past time for a kid/teenager (despite my very urgent interest). A waste of time, either toy or nerd-tool. Somewhat what people previously thought of books. So my biggest interest (programming) was always something I was myself dismissing and even avoiding for a few very important years, and I spent most of my time as a teenager in front of a TV, gaming or partying/meeting with friends outdoors. I could have spent that time... differently, and I am not blaming anyone, not my parents and not me. I had a good time, but I might have appreciated a little guidance/company. I just want to say I know why I was not a mad hacker at 17 - small details in paths are waiting everywhere, and there are more exceptions than rules.

PhillyG 6y ago

Technology and development is an area of constant growth, pretty much by definition. A technology can't be the latest and greatest technology without pushing the boundaries. Companies who market themselves as innovators, have to, well, push innovations. Frameworks and developer tools keep appearing and being added to because they can exist to help others innovate. Individual developers who want to make sure that their skills are up to date, have to keep learning new skills as new ones appear. There are so many different bits of hardware and software out there now, and possible ways and benefits to integrating with them or supporting them; that even just working on a given project for a while with broad enough vision, might see you having to learn lots of different things