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I've just signed up for this on Coursera. The syllabus reminds me a whole of my first and second year Computer Science, but this course promises to use Python, versus the Turbo Pascal and C++ I enjoyed twenty years ago, and Python is screaming out for attention at the top of my to-learn list. Also at the top is Angular, so I'm thinking I could do the assignments in both Python and JavaScript, without being too bogged down by problems as complex as everyday stuff.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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For my introductory course into computer science at uni we had this beauty here: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs[^]. I still have my copy on the shelf. I loved that course, ah memories!
Cheers!
"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability!"
Ron White, Comedian
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That is a highly esteemed and seminal work, often cited in many other works. I have not had the pleasure of it as a textbook, but merely scanned through a few chapters on occasion. Only one of my CS textbooks was, I think, in the same class, and that was Timothy Budd's An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming[^].
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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Bah! Humbug! Everything I needed to know to be the hot-shot programmer that I am came from this[^] book.
/ravi
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COBOL... three semesters in college.
Write an edit program to read in a deck of records; quantity unknown.
Validate each record and output either the required fields or, if the record has errors, a list of the errors with the associated data.
Each output, valid or otherwise, should be preceded and succeeded by header and footer data to make the records easily identifiable.
Control your own pagination; if there is not enough rows left on the output page for the entire record report, force a force break.
Each page must page a header and footer with page number.
In COBOL. With header section (author, etc).
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And to think my cousin makes good $ in NYC doing exactly this kind of stuff today, while I stay up till 2:00am trying to debug race conditions in multi-threaded scheduling code on a performance box for half the money. 
/ravi
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I started off as a COBOL programmer and while I could probably be paid much more writing in COBOL I would not give up the excitement and creativity that .NET offers me(even if it pays less).
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Agreed 100%. 
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: good $ in NYC
Self contradictory... is it worth the $ to live in NYC?
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She lives in NJ - it's an easy commute across the East River. I agree - I wouldn't trade T.O. for NYC today. I lived and worked in NYC for 6 years and had my fill.
/ravi
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Lived in North Bay... yes, north of TO; worked in London, Ontario for 13 years.
Now, just south of Charlotte, NC... like it here.
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I reckon so. I breezed through the tutorials in the docs loving every line of it.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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I have read two excellent books by Benjamin Woolley this year : one was "The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter," the story of Byron's daughter, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the mathematical prodigy, known as the "Princess of Parallelograms," who along with Charles Babbage came up with the design for the world's first (mechanical) general purpose computer: [^].
The other was the story of Dr. John Dee, physician, alchemist, magician to Queen Eliabeth the First : "The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth:" [^].
Both were excellent, however, the book on Ada did not cover the fascinating and tragic collaboration she engaged in with Babbage on a scheme to bet on horses based on mathematical theories.
Said scheme leading to the loss of Babbage's funds, and the skilled workmen building the "Analytic Engine" walking off the job with their custom-made dies and jigs. If they had finished the "Engine" (a working model is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum), it has been hypothesized that giant, perhaps steam-powered, computers could have been employed around the start of the 20th. century !
As you may know, novelists William Gibson and Bruce Sterling used this premise (the Difference Engine completed and in widespread use) in their entertaining 1992 novel "The Difference Engine:" [^].
"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844
«I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center» Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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The second book sounds really interesting.
Will look at it tonight.
Thanks.
I'd rather be phishing!
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I've always wanted to know more about Dee, as an aspirant magician myself, and this looks like a perfect start.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Difference Engine.
I'm going to use that a lot in upcoming code reviews: "That might actually have worked, were provisions made accordingly!". 
Cheer!
"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability!"
Ron White, Comedian
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Thanks for the tip, the Ada book interests me. I've been reading quite a lot of popular science books on maths recently.
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Are jokes about German sausage the Wurst?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Only after the first nein.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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When told by brats, yes.
«I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center» Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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Hot dog! You're right!
/ravi
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Not sure I understand... gotta link?
Contrary to popular belief, nobody owes you anything.
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