5 ms·
well maybe not that, but it is very surprising that there are software engineers out there who dont know what inodes are. on my uni this was explained in an OS
by lamp987 4y ago
well maybe not that, but it is very surprising that there are software engineers out there who dont know what inodes are. on my uni this was explained in an OS class in year 2 of bachelors programme. its basic knowledge.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoOperating Systems was an elective in my bachelor's program. It's certainly not basic knowledge.
- pjmlp 4y agoSo there are engineering degrees without OS knowledge?!?
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoYes, and on the other hand, there are surely also degrees with OS knowledge, but without AI knowledge. And degrees with AI knowledge, but without 3D graphics knowledge. And... well, you get the point.
- mgaunard 4y agoEveryone either uses an operating system or builds one. Few people actually do real "AI".
- panzagl 4y agoHard to do AI or 3D graphics without an O/S.
- wongarsu 4y agoBut easy to do without understanding the OS's inner workings. And there are far more people working on 3d engines or AI than on operating systems.
- frank_nitti 4y agoI would be willing to bet that some OS knowledge comes in very handy for almost anyone who writes software than runs on an OS. I’m sure it’s more important for the 3D graphics programmer to understand the execution environment within the context of directX or OpenGL etc. But it is hard to imagine building any native application without some grasp of cpu scheduling, memory paging, device i/o etc that you’d get in an basic OS course
- mikebenfield 4y agoReally strange perspective. Sure it’d be nice if everyone understood those things. But to think they’re absolutely necessary for any application level programming is… odd.
- mgaunard 4y agoNot odd at all. To me if you don't know these things, you shouldn't be writing code.
- laumars 4y agoIn most of the last two decades of my career, the OS has been abstracted away from developers by their sysadmins. And things have only gotten more extreme with the emergence/resurgence of managed hosts in the form of cloud computing “serverless” services.
- pjmlp 4y agoAt least Portuguese universities always have introduction lectures to everything relevant in CS, electives are for deep diving, and you always need to do a bunch of them for getting the graduation credits. Pity it isn't the same everywhere then.
- swexbe 4y ago>everything relevant in CS Literally not possible in 3 years.
- pjmlp 4y agoTraditional Portuguese degrees in Software Engineering are 5 years, on average people take 7. When Bologna came around and reduced them to 3, Portuguese universities got around it by offering degree + MSc, so basically business as usual. Known in English as Licentiate Degree. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licentiate_(degree) So, nope not 3 years.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoYes, but we have been discussing bachelor's degrees, not bachelor's + master's.
- pjmlp 4y agoIn Licentiate, bachelor's are 5 years, master 2 years, and PhD another 3. One of the reasons to Bologna was to try to harmonize the fact that countries like Portugal, someone with a degree would be downgraded when applying abroad. So we are pretty much discussing bachelor degrees.
- johnisgood 4y agoAnd lots of people... I was curious so I checked a video that taught JavaScript to newbies. It was full of errors. I would say that this is a common thing, unfortunately.
- chillpenguin 4y agoAt my university the compilers course was optional. I always thought it was weird that such a foundational part of computing was an elective. We did have to take an OS course though!
- hulitu 4y agoWorse, there are a lot of SW engineers who have no idea how a computer works. One common mistake is that code is executed "instantly". Especially in embedded, this is problematic.