What's the bigger WTF - the student or the college who rewards mediocrity with a degree?



  • My friend's wife (we'll call her Sarah) is going for an associates degree in "web development" at a local community college. Sarah has been in this program for 3-4 years and she's about to graduate. Right now, she's taking a class in PHP/mySQL development, and she needed some help with her final project - building a basic eCommerce site. They were given some basic source code and instructed to add a few features and improve the CSS. She said she needed help writing a database query using prepared statements with the mysqli library. Even though I am not a PHP developer (yuck), this sounded easy enough. I figured I would spend a few minutes on php.net and help debug the section of code she was having problems with. I would have been so lucky.

    When Sarah got to my house, I said, "Why don't you show me what you're trying to accomplish and then we'll look at your code." She took out her laptop and pulled up her website. Sarah told me, "When a user logs in, I want to insert a record into the users table and then log them in." That sounded completely ass-backward to me, so I asked to read over the assignment. I read through 3 pages of requirements. As far as I could tell, none of them were implemented, in spite of the project being due the next day. I skimmed ahead to the requirements for the login page - it actually said to add two records to the users table (w/ a hashed password) and build a login page that checked the supplied credentials against that table. OK, that made more sense. So, we set off to building the login page. This is where the real fun begins.

    It turns out that Sarah doesn't know anything about programming - she couldn't write an if statement without help. I don't mean that she struggled with the syntax of writing an if statement in PHP - she flat out didn't understand the concept. At one point, she actually said "this always confuses me...I understand the if part, but I don't get how the 'then' part works" Some other highlights:

    1. She wasn't familiar with the $_POST[] or $_GET[] arrays in PHP, or arrays in general for that matter.
    2. She didn't know the difference between POST/GET form actions, and wasn't familiar with URL parameters/query strings
    3. She had no idea how to write code that calls a function. She wasn't familiar with the terms "argument" or "parameter".
    4. She had no concept of a session variable, even though she was required to build a login page that tracked whether a user was logged in.
    5. She was confused by the concept of a string, and frequently omitted quotes from assignment and conditional statements.


    So, my "help" basically consisted of 3 hours where I gave several strong hints of what to write. Generally, it took her 3-4 attempts to write each line of code before the logic looked correct. After that, I had to point out her syntax errors. I did my best to not write code for her, but that's pretty challenging when the person doesn't know a lick about programming to begin with. I am sure she learned absolutely nothing from this experience. But when all was said and done, the login page was now working. Of course, there are still two more pages of requirements that she needs to implement, so it's nowhere near being complete. I've already decided that I am not going to help her again, at least not on the level that I helped her last night. It's not going to help her in the long run, as she's just looking "to get a C and graduate." If I had known all this before, I wouldn't have volunteered to help her at all. I don't want to enable that sort of attitude.

     

    I could understand most of these mistakes if this was an introductory programming course. I could also understand if this was an IT-centric degree that didn't focus on programming. However, this is a pretty advanced class for an associates program in "web development". Supposedly, she has taken classes in Java and C++ before, and she's about to graduate in a few months. What is the bigger WTF? A student with a web development degree who can't write code, or a school that awards a web development degree to people who can't write code? In a way, I feel sorry for this girl - she probably spent a decent chunk of change on this degree and she still has no real skills.



  • The WTF is you... and all the others that "helped" her along the way.

    The college if they get what you helped with assumes she wrote it, why wouldn't they give a degree with at least a passing grade.

    Is she pretty? Does she bat her eyes a bit. Not being sexist here really, or even saying she is being flirtatious, it's just common for those of us that are prettier to get more help. Many before you probably helped her maybe only once, you were just next in line.

    This is one reason why I don't put much faith in degrees in our field. Granted with no experience and everything else being equal I will give the recent graduate the job first but after a few years, that degree is development doesn't mean as much any more, the field changes quickly and if you don't keep up you will see yourself out of the business pretty quick.



  • @bighusker said:

    At one point, she actually said "this always confuses me...I understand the if part, but I don't get how the 'then' part works"

    Not a native english speaker, perhaps? Were you to say to her "If you get an A in this class, then I will give you $100", would she understand that? Even normal people can use [url=https://ifttt.com/wtf]If This Then That[/url] to do things they shouldn't.

    @bighusker said:

    Supposedly, she has taken classes in Java and C++ before

    ...and passed? Without understanding an if statement? Is this why it's taken her 3-4 years to get a 2 year degree, or is it just night school?



  • Perhaps, but what exactly was I supposed to do?  I didn't know anything about her abilities when I agreed to help her.  I only agreed to help after another mutual friend wasn't able to and the mutual friend practically begged me to help.  She described a reasonable problem over the phone and I agreed to look at her code.  At that point, I was committed.  This was my friend's wife, so it's not like I can just kick her out of the house and tell her "tough shit" without straining a relatinship.  That type of advice sounds great on snarky internet message boards like this one, but doesn't play so well when it involves real people in your circle of friends.  When it comes to tutoring, I'll give friends a chance.  I did everything in my power to make her struggle through the problem, but in the end, she was completely helpless.  I regret getting myself into the situation, but I only helpd her with one small requirement on her project.  As near as I could tell, she still had 80% of it left to do over the next 24 hours and I've already decided not to help with that.  There's no way she would get a passing grade for what was done.

    For the record, looks had nothing to do with it.  For one, my wife is more attractive, and secondly, I only agreed to help because she was a friend.

     

     


     



  • @tweek said:

    @bighusker said:
    At one point, she actually said "this always confuses me...I understand the if part, but I don't get how the 'then' part works"

    Not a native english speaker, perhaps? Were you to say to her "If you get an A in this class, then I will give you $100", would she understand that? Even normal people can use If This Then That to do things they shouldn't.

    @bighusker said:

    Supposedly, she has taken classes in Java and C++ before

    ...and passed? Without understanding an if statement? Is this why it's taken her 3-4 years to get a 2 year degree, or is it just night school?

    She is a native English speaker, so the if/then question was rather puzzling.  I think she was more confused about the body of an if statement.  I explained that all of the code between the curly braces will be executed only if the condition is true..  She nodded along after I explained that, so hopefully some of it sank it. 

    The part about taking C++ and Java classes...I have no idea how she passed them.  Either she faked her way through it, or the school has extremely low standards.  It is a community college, so it's certainly possible they are just treating their program as a diploma mill.  I believe it's taken her 3-4 years because she's only been taking a few classes at a time.



  • @bighusker said:

    @tweek said:
    [

    @bighusker said:

    Supposedly, she has taken classes in Java and C++ before
    ...and passed? Without understanding an if statement? Is this why it's taken her 3-4 years to get a 2 year degree, or is it just night school?

    ...I explained that all of the code between the curly braces will be executed only if the condition is true..  She nodded along after I explained that, so hopefully some of it sank it.

    The part about taking C++ and Java classes...I have no idea how she passed them.  Either she faked her way through it, or the school has extremely low standards.  It is a community college, so it's certainly possible they are just treating their program as a diploma mill.  I believe it's taken her 3-4 years because she's only been taking a few classes at a time.

    The only a few at a time and understanding (or seeming to) after you explained something does make it sound like a diploma mill.  Though I suppose spacing things out so different people are carrying them through class would also be reasonable.


  • BINNED

    @bighusker said:

    The part about taking C++ and Java classes...I have no idea how she passed them.
    You were told earlier in the thread:

    @KattMan said:

    all the others that "helped" her along the way



  • No shit, a "web development" course at a community college is worthless. Next you'll tell me that water is wet.

    The real shame of our profession isn't that degrees as a whole aren't worth anything, it's that too many people get half-assed bullshit from fourth rate diploma mills, and nobody in a hiring department can (apparently) tell the difference.



  • @bighusker said:

    This was my friend's wife, so it's not like I can just kick her out of the house and tell her "tough shit" without straining a relatinship. 

    Not for kicking out, but you can help someone without strainging relationship. Telling truth to someone ("sorry, but you are very far from being a programmer") is making this person hint on how to improve herself. You learn better when people are telling you what you are doing wrong then when people point out what you are doing good.

    Aside from that, i consider you handled it quite well, restarting from zero on basic programming rules :)



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @bighusker said:
    The part about taking C++ and Java classes...I have no idea how she passed them.
    You were told earlier in the thread:

    @KattMan said:

    all the others that "helped" her along the way

    If somebody can fake their way through that far, then I guess they are doing something right. The thing is...there's ways to weed this shit out. Namely, make written exams a bigger part of the grade. All the good looks and charm in the world can't let you fake your way through a good old-fashioned programming exam.

    More info from the mutual friend - she's apparently only getting this degree for the sake of having a degree. She wants to get a raise at her current job. No fucking idea why she would choose such a hard degree for that reason.



  • @bighusker said:

    More info from the mutual friend - she's apparently only getting this degree for the sake of having a degree. She wants to get a raise at her current job. No fucking idea why she would choose such a hard degree for that reason.

    Apparently it isn't that hard if she hasn't been kicked out of the program yet and is on track to graduate soon. TRWTF is the college, obviously, for letting someone who doesn't have the skills stay for 4 years.



  • @bighusker said:

    No fucking idea why she would choose such a hard degree for that reason.


    GAAAAH. This right here is that fucking problem. No, an associate's degree in "Web Development" from some scrub community college is not a "hard degree." The professors know this, the students know this. You learn approximately the same amount from your basic high school computer science classes (with maybe a little more introduction to Dreamweaver). And, overall, it doesn't need to be. The sorts of people who get those things are either tech support drones trapped by their innate lack of intelligence or drive, or small businesspeople who want to find out what this whole "internet" thing is about (with a very, very small percentage of those who made bad choices in life).

    The problem comes when said tech support drone goes to apply for a new job with his shiny "Web Development" degree and proceeds to demonstrate precisely why he couldn't go to a real college or get a real degree. And sadly, the guy who hired him doesn't think "hey, maybe I shouldn't be hiring people from Greendale Community College." Instead he comes to the conclusion that Computer Science degrees are worthless and the only useful metric for hiring is at least 3 years of experience. 



  • Some of them just shrug their shoulders and make all applicants write Fizzbuzz.

    Kind of terrible that this works as well as it does, but there it is.



  • @Snooder said:

    @bighusker said:

    No fucking idea why she would choose such a hard degree for that reason.


    GAAAAH. This right here is that fucking problem. No, an associate's degree in "Web Development" from some scrub community college is not a "hard degree."

    Hard for you or me? No...

    Hard in relative comparison to a marketing/communications degree form a CC? Yea, it'd be harder. All I'm saying was that she had other options if she just wanted a degree.



  • I could tell stories all day of my time at a local technical college (Don't know how that ranks against community college, don't honestly care). Frankly I knew almost everything I needed to know to graduate walking in, save for an excellent Photoshop class and an amazing web development instructor (PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, the usual fare. Guy was damn good though.)

    I knew one girl that I always unfortunately seemed to end up in classes with, called her Database Action Barbie since my first encounter with her happened to be the SQL class. Not that she was pretty mind you, I called her Barbie because she was an incredible dunce. Seriously, every single concept needed to be explained in triplicate, and I don't honestly think she got it after that.

    I have no idea if she graduated. I fucking hope not. I know that she wasn't alone, though, we had tons of middle aged folks in the same classes. It was a riot and a half watching these people, who could barely aim a mouse, try to learn ASP.net. Thanks to an earlier class in VB.net, I picked up ASP pretty damn easily (similar syntax, etc.) so I immediately became the person everybody wanted to ask questions during the work periods. Led me to take up the habit of doing the homework during the lecture so I could leave.

    Our school claims to have good graduation rates, if that's so I'd say they're graduating a lot of under qualified people. I think the peak was when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it) to make a credit requirement one semester, and sweet baby Jesus. I think we had some people in their 70's in that class, and I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.



  • @Master Chief said:

    I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.
    No, no, you don't understand. Software development tools need to be usable enough for everybody. Ask blakeyrat, he'll tell you.



  • Explain an if statement: easy!

    IF i slap you in the face THEN you will cry



  • @Quango said:

    Explain an if statement: easy!

    IF i slap you in the face THEN you will cry

    And follow up with a live example.



  • @bighusker said:

    Perhaps, but what exactly was I supposed to do ...{snip}...

    For the record, looks had nothing to do with it.  For one, my wife is more attractive, and secondly, I only agreed to help because she was a friend.


    Not saying you did anything wrong, we are all the WTF at some point without realizing it. You only become an active WTF if you continue once you realize it. We all get into things sometimes without knowing how deep that rabbit hole goes.
    As for the looks part, You may not have been motivated by that, but it seems many, MANY others were.



  • @Master Chief said:

    ...when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it)...
     

    Wondering how you took a class in 2018 (or beyond) already?????



  • @bighusker said:

    It turns out that Sarah doesn't know anything about programming

    I've met people like this (mostly girls, I'm afraid).

    Most of them don't work in IT (anymore). And certainly not as programmers/developers. But this industry cannot work with 'hard' geek types only. There is actually a need for persons who can participate in projects with more 'soft' values (administrators, analysts, testers etc.), so TRWTF is probably the college, who inists on programming knowledge.

    However, when that is said and done, I think more people should know what programming is about. I have met a few managers / project leads who knew next to nothing about the core problems in the project.

    I believe you took the right decision (as I would have done exactly the same).



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    @Master Chief said:

    ...when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it)...
     

    Wondering how you took a class in 2018 (or beyond) already?????


    Ugh, sorry, Microsoft Expression Web. I was tired.



  • @ochrist said:

    @bighusker said:

    It turns out that Sarah doesn't know anything about programming

    I've met people like this (mostly girls, I'm afraid).

    Most of them don't work in IT (anymore). And certainly not as programmers/developers. But this industry cannot work with 'hard' geek types only. There is actually a need for persons who can participate in projects with more 'soft' values (administrators, analysts, testers etc.), so TRWTF is probably the college, who inists on programming knowledge.

    However, when that is said and done, I think more people should know what programming is about. I have met a few managers / project leads who knew next to nothing about the core problems in the project.

    I believe you took the right decision (as I would have done exactly the same).

    I wouldn't have helped her the one time he did. It's obvious she was either in way over her head (in which case she shouldn't pass) or had put zero effort into learning a damn thing (in which case she especially shouldn't pass).

    I've never understood the idea that just because someone is good at what you call soft skills that they can't program too. It should be a requirement, they would do much better at their jobs.



  • @KattMan said:

    The WTF is you...

    I'm not sure that's fair. You're saying the OP should have turned down Sarah? In business, I agree you would normally ask for more information than "help Sarah with their project" when being given work. You want to know what you're doing, but this isn't business.

    @bighusker said:

    My friend's wife...

    That's why he's doing it. Then it turns out the hole is far too deep. If this was the beginning of the course, and the OP was the tutor, then I agree he would have been the WTF. As it is, he's expecting some front-end help, when he's actually having to do the job of the tutor, and partly the job of the student.

    The student and the teacher between them have options. The OP has no options. You want to blame the OP when they have no options. That's not fair. If you disagree, name an option which would certainly not have strained his relationship with his friend.



  • @bighusker said:

    Namely, make written exams a bigger part of the grade.

    If you mean writing syntactically correct code with pen and paper, go fuck yourself. I've had to do that and it's the dumbest fucking thing I can imagine. If you mean a practical exam, that's different. "Here are the specs, you have three hours to turn in a program." That's fine, I actually enjoy those.

    I think my favorite story about practical exams has to be my data structures midterm: write a console program that will determine if a string containing parens, brackets, and curlies is properly balanced. Fairly standard. But my girlfriend (who was taking data structures simultaneously at a different [better] school) has gotten the same assignment a week previously. I was nosey and bored so I decided that I was going to take a whack at her assignment (not doing her homework, but on my own). So when the midterm came, since I had literally done this exact thing just a few days ago, I knocked it out in twenty minutes, sat around for a bit, added in angle brackets for good measure, then turned it in and left. I was in the exam hall for less than 40 minutes.


  • Considered Harmful

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @bighusker said:
    Namely, make written exams a bigger part of the grade.

    If you mean writing syntactically correct code with pen and paper, go fuck yourself. I've had to do that and it's the dumbest fucking thing I can imagine. If you mean a practical exam, that's different. "Here are the specs, you have three hours to turn in a program." That's fine, I actually enjoy those.

    I think my favorite story about practical exams has to be my data structures midterm: write a console program that will determine if a string containing parens, brackets, and curlies is properly balanced. Fairly standard. But my girlfriend (who was taking data structures simultaneously at a different [better] school) has gotten the same assignment a week previously. I was nosey and bored so I decided that I was going to take a whack at her assignment (not doing her homework, but on my own). So when the midterm came, since I had literally done this exact thing just a few days ago, I knocked it out in twenty minutes, sat around for a bit, added in angle brackets for good measure, then turned it in and left. I was in the exam hall for less than 40 minutes.

    <html><body style='color:#000000; background:#ffffff; '>
    ( function() {
    	'use strict';
    
    <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>var</span> tags <span style='color:#808030; '>=</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'&lt;'</span><span style='color:#800080; '>:</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'>'</span><span style='color:#808030; '>,</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'['</span><span style='color:#800080; '>:</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>']'</span><span style='color:#808030; '>,</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'('</span><span style='color:#800080; '>:</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>')'</span><span style='color:#808030; '>,</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'{'</span><span style='color:#800080; '>:</span> <span style='color:#0000e6; '>'}'</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>}</span><span style='color:#808030; '>,</span>
    	closeTags <span style='color:#808030; '>=</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>[</span><span style='color:#808030; '>]</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    
    <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>for</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>var</span> i <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>in</span> tags <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>if</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> tags<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>hasOwnProperty<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> i <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span>
    	closeTags<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>push<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> tags<span style='color:#808030; '>[</span> i <span style='color:#808030; '>]</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    <span style='color:#800080; '>}</span>
    
    <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>function</span> isBalanced<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> str <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span>
    	<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>var</span> stack <span style='color:#808030; '>=</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>[</span><span style='color:#808030; '>]</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    	<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>for</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>var</span> i <span style='color:#808030; '>=</span> <span style='color:#008c00; '>0</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span> i <span style='color:#808030; '>&lt;</span> str<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>length<span style='color:#800080; '>;</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>++</span>i <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span>
    		<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>var</span> c <span style='color:#808030; '>=</span> str<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span><span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>charAt</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> i <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    		<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>if</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> closeTags<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span><span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>indexOf</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> c <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>>=</span> <span style='color:#008c00; '>0</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span>
    			<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>if</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> stack<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>pop<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span><span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>!==</span> c <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>return</span> <span style='color:#0f4d75; '>false</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>	
    		<span style='color:#800080; '>}</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>else</span> <span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>if</span><span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> tags<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>hasOwnProperty<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> c <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span> <span style='color:#800080; '>{</span>
    			stack<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>push<span style='color:#808030; '>(</span> tags<span style='color:#808030; '>[</span> c <span style='color:#808030; '>]</span> <span style='color:#808030; '>)</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    		<span style='color:#800080; '>}</span>
    	<span style='color:#800080; '>}</span>
    	<span style='color:#800000; font-weight:bold; '>return</span> stack<span style='color:#808030; '>.</span>length <span style='color:#808030; '>===</span> <span style='color:#008c00; '>0</span><span style='color:#800080; '>;</span>
    <span style='color:#800080; '>}</span>
    

    }() );


    yawn



  • s/[^][{}()<>]//g
    :1
    s/\[]]//g
    t1
    s/()//g
    t1
    s/{}//g
    t1
    s/<>//g
    t1
    s/.//
    t2
    cbalanced
    b
    :2
    cunbalanced
    


  • maybe you should take a huuuuuge step back from the code and just draw somewhere what you want to do. Because usually representing some abstract ifs and so on as a small flowchart does wonders to noobs getting it.



  • sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/\[]]|\{}|\(\)|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'


  • @flabdablet said:

    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/[]|{}|()|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    Won't that just match any character not contained in ∅?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    @flabdablet said:
    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/[|{}|()|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    Won't that just match any character not contained in ∅?
    No; it's a special case in the RE syntax, in that the character after an initial set negation (^) is always treated as a member of the set to negate.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    @flabdablet said:
    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/[|{}|()|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    Won't that just match any character not contained in ∅?
    No - you've terminated the set too early(Metacharacters Inside Character Classes section) - caret immediate after the opening bracket negates the set, and if you want ] to be in the set, it must be the first to be specified.



  • If it didn't work when I tested it, I wouldn't have posted it.

    Also interested in knowing whether there's a shorter solution in any language.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @flabdablet said:
    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/[|{}|()|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    Won't that just match any character not contained in ∅?
    Also also, CS's fucked-up bbcode processor means that you have to put []]] anywhere you want []] to appear, even inside <pre> tags, because it eats any ] immediately following a [ (compare your quoted version with my posted original - yours has a missing ] in the second s///).



  • @flabdablet said:

    If it didn't work when I tested it, I wouldn't have posted it.

    Also interested in knowing whether there's a shorter solution in any language.

    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/\[]]|\{}|\(\)|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    In IRP:

    [code]Please find the unmatched brackets in $string[/code]

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Buttembly Coder said:

    In IRP:


    <font face="Lucida Console" size="2">Please find the unmatched brackets in $string</font>

    <font face="Lucida Console" size="2">Found. They're now mine.</font>



  • @Buttembly Coder said:

    @flabdablet said:

    If it didn't work when I tested it, I wouldn't have posted it.

    Also interested in knowing whether there's a shorter solution in any language.

    sed -r 's/[^][{}()<>]//g;:1;s/\[]|\{}|\(\)|<>//g;t1;s/.+/un/;s/$/balanced/'

    In IRP:

    <font face="Lucida Console" size="2">Please find the unmatched brackets in $string</font>
    Error - no input specified


  • @Master Chief said:

    I could tell stories all day of my time at a local technical college (Don't know how that ranks against community college, don't honestly care). Frankly I knew almost everything I needed to know to graduate walking in, save for an excellent Photoshop class and an amazing web development instructor (PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, the usual fare. Guy was damn good though.)

    I knew one girl that I always unfortunately seemed to end up in classes with, called her Database Action Barbie since my first encounter with her happened to be the SQL class. Not that she was pretty mind you, I called her Barbie because she was an incredible dunce. Seriously, every single concept needed to be explained in triplicate, and I don't honestly think she got it after that.

    I have no idea if she graduated. I fucking hope not. I know that she wasn't alone, though, we had tons of middle aged folks in the same classes. It was a riot and a half watching these people, who could barely aim a mouse, try to learn ASP.net. Thanks to an earlier class in VB.net, I picked up ASP pretty damn easily (similar syntax, etc.) so I immediately became the person everybody wanted to ask questions during the work periods. Led me to take up the habit of doing the homework during the lecture so I could leave.

    Our school claims to have good graduation rates, if that's so I'd say they're graduating a lot of under qualified people. I think the peak was when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it) to make a credit requirement one semester, and sweet baby Jesus. I think we had some people in their 70's in that class, and I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.

     

    Ageism. My mother develops databases on big iron, while kids with iToys think that "hacked" means "I left my toy where my gf could get it and she posted a status update on fb."



  • @Master Chief said:

    I think we had some people in their 70's in that class, and I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.
     

    I learned HTML and CSS and Photoshop way before I knew that network drives existed.

    I could aim a mouse, though.



  • @oheso said:

    @Master Chief said:

    I could tell stories all day of my time at a local technical college (Don't know how that ranks against community college, don't honestly care). Frankly I knew almost everything I needed to know to graduate walking in, save for an excellent Photoshop class and an amazing web development instructor (PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, the usual fare. Guy was damn good though.)

    I knew one girl that I always unfortunately seemed to end up in classes with, called her Database Action Barbie since my first encounter with her happened to be the SQL class. Not that she was pretty mind you, I called her Barbie because she was an incredible dunce. Seriously, every single concept needed to be explained in triplicate, and I don't honestly think she got it after that.

    I have no idea if she graduated. I fucking hope not. I know that she wasn't alone, though, we had tons of middle aged folks in the same classes. It was a riot and a half watching these people, who could barely aim a mouse, try to learn ASP.net. Thanks to an earlier class in VB.net, I picked up ASP pretty damn easily (similar syntax, etc.) so I immediately became the person everybody wanted to ask questions during the work periods. Led me to take up the habit of doing the homework during the lecture so I could leave.

    Our school claims to have good graduation rates, if that's so I'd say they're graduating a lot of under qualified people. I think the peak was when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it) to make a credit requirement one semester, and sweet baby Jesus. I think we had some people in their 70's in that class, and I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.

     

    Ageism. My mother develops databases on big iron, while kids with iToys think that "hacked" means "I left my toy where my gf could get it and she posted a status update on fb."

    I was going to respond to this by pointing out you were calling me an ageist after a story about a fellow college aged student, but you then decided to judge me based on my age in the same comment, so...yeah, that's a thing, I suppose. Good work.



  • @oheso said:

    @Master Chief said:

    I could tell stories all day of my time at a local technical college (Don't know how that ranks against community college, don't honestly care). Frankly I knew almost everything I needed to know to graduate walking in, save for an excellent Photoshop class and an amazing web development instructor (PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, the usual fare. Guy was damn good though.)

    I knew one girl that I always unfortunately seemed to end up in classes with, called her Database Action Barbie since my first encounter with her happened to be the SQL class. Not that she was pretty mind you, I called her Barbie because she was an incredible dunce. Seriously, every single concept needed to be explained in triplicate, and I don't honestly think she got it after that.

    I have no idea if she graduated. I fucking hope not. I know that she wasn't alone, though, we had tons of middle aged folks in the same classes. It was a riot and a half watching these people, who could barely aim a mouse, try to learn ASP.net. Thanks to an earlier class in VB.net, I picked up ASP pretty damn easily (similar syntax, etc.) so I immediately became the person everybody wanted to ask questions during the work periods. Led me to take up the habit of doing the homework during the lecture so I could leave.

    Our school claims to have good graduation rates, if that's so I'd say they're graduating a lot of under qualified people. I think the peak was when I had to take a class in Visio (already 2 years discontinued mind you when I took it) to make a credit requirement one semester, and sweet baby Jesus. I think we had some people in their 70's in that class, and I'm sorry, if you can't even find a pre-mounted network drive in Explorer, you have no damn business building anything for the Internet.

     

    Ageism. My mother develops databases on big iron, while kids with iToys think that "hacked" means "I left my toy where my gf could get it and she posted a status update on fb."

    Whenever I read this comment it makes me think your mother has some kind of ingenius interpreter set up such that when she moves an iron (a big one, obviously) around on an ironing board, it emits SQL.



    Possibly a sexist thing for me to imagine, but I think it probably has more to do with what the word iron conjures up first in my head than anything else.



  • Whenever I read this comment it makes me think your mother has some kind of ingenius interpreter set up such that when she moves an iron (a big one, obviously) around on an ironing board, it emits SQL.
    ...

     Envisioning an ironing board that could hold: http://it-dep-fio-ds.web.cern.ch/it-dep-fio-ds/Documentation/tapedrive/ibm3090-92.gif 



  • @Algorythmics said:

    Possibly a sexist thing for me to imagine, but I think it probably has more to do with what the word iron conjures up first in my head than anything else.
     

    It's called stereotyping. It's not inherently evil, but it's really good to be aware that you're doing it.

    Reminds me of my boss who said to the black guy in our office who plays in a band: "I bet you play funk!"

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @Algorythmics said:

    Possibly a sexist thing for me to imagine, but I think it probably has more to do with what the word iron conjures up first in my head than anything else.
     

    It's called stereotyping. It's not inherently evil, but it's really good to be aware that you're doing it.

    Reminds me of my boss who said to the black guy in our office who plays in a band: "I bet you play funk!"

     


    I'll stop enforcing stereotypes when they stop being proven correct.



  • @Master Chief said:

    I'll stop enforcing stereotypes when they stop being proven correct.
     

    Good. No stereotype has ever been proven to be correct. You can stop.

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Master Chief said:

    I'll stop enforcing stereotypes when they stop being proven correct.
     

    Dude, they guy who defends his racism with "but sometimes stereotypes are correct" is such a stereotype. Stop being a stereotype.

    And speaking of "typing" in "stereo", here's [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ"]a youtube clip[/url].


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    @Master Chief said:
    I'll stop enforcing stereotypes when they stop being proven correct.

    Good. No stereotype has ever been proven to be correct. You can stop.

    They haven't been proven wrong, either. I'll allow it, although I'm mostly curious to hear about how one goes about enforcing a stereotype.

    Put that fork down until you upload to Instagram you ironic bastard!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Whenever I read this comment it makes me think your mother has some kind of ingenius interpreter set up such that when she moves an iron (a big one, obviously) around on an ironing board, it emits SQL.
    ...

     Envisioning an ironing board that could hold: http://it-dep-fio-ds.web.cern.ch/it-dep-fio-ds/Documentation/tapedrive/ibm3090-92.gif 

    I'd like to imagine that when you got one of those, it came with the giant sign on top, so everyone would know what it is.



  • @boomzilla said:

    I'm mostly curious to hear about how one goes about enforcing a stereotype.
     

    With poor rhetorical skills, I think.

    @boomzilla said:

    They haven't been proven wrong, either.

    You're saying you don't have eyes and ears and have no way of directly experiencing people?

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dhromed said:

    @boomzilla said:
    They haven't been proven wrong, either.

    You're saying you don't have eyes and ears and have no way of directly experiencing people?

    I don't think that's what I said. Maybe it shows up differently on your screen.

    Maybe it depends on if you're the stereotypical person who frets about a stereotype not being correct for every person and therefore think it's an injustice to notice typical things about certain types of people. In case you were wondering, that's not me, though I think people who think like that are probably trying to over compensate for their embarrassment over judging and categorizing people, as opposed to keeping an open mind about judgments and categorizations.


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