programming in the workplace

stevend · Post by **stevend** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:01 pm

i hail from Ontario, Canada and soon i will be trying to get into college.

So i figure i want to do programming. They have one course and its full, and its probably some pathetic touring or 10 year old language.

They also have a web designers class. Still, not my style.

So when i seen this limit in courses i was liek "wtf!" zor and they told me well if i want to do some low level stuff, there are classes to program robots, do stop lights, run certain machine, etc.

i was wondering if anybody has taken a course or has had experiance programming circuts, robots, etc. and what they think of it?

thanks

JP · Post by JP » Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:09 pm

Think about what your career goal is and whether that's going to help you get into a good job.

I did a class on robotics at Uni and we programmed them in cut own version of C so i guess you'd certainly be getting programming experience so it may serve you well but probably wouldn't teach you anything good for games programming as i doubt they'd be using OOP in robots for a start. So it basically depends on what you want to do with your career.

stevend · Post by **stevend** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:36 pm

indeed, i suppose my answer for that would be "i want to program". I think i need to do some more research on this. Maybe a web design, and robotics course would be good to have, and i could look into some other programming classes when the time comes that they open up

thanks for the reply, but

did you have fun programming robots

it looks like it would be some fun for sure! lol

JP · Post by JP » Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:40 pm

Well our robotics course was the most amount of work i did at Uni... seriously.. i piled so many hours into it trying to get our robot to do what it was meant to and it just wasn't working... But that wasn't really down to programming, rather down to poor equipment we were given to work with, otherwise it was great fun.

Basically programming games is cool, making some cool stuff happen on screen but imagine being able to program a robot that can actually move around and do stuff.. that's like even better (in some ways

)

But from the sounds of it your robotics work probably wouldn't be that advanced maybe... We spent an entire semester on one robot and you've got other things to cover in your course such as stop lights, which doesn't sounds very challenging so i imagine it may be like a beginners robotics course or something.

aanderse · Post by **aanderse** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 2:08 pm

Seneca College in Toronto

I've heard really good things about their programming courses lately. They've teamed up with both Mozilla and Red Hat to offer real world experience in programming (which adds the benefit of getting funding from both companies iirc). I've also heard it's a great way to add experience to your resume while attending school.

I had a friend who graduated from Seneca (not from programming) and he had pretty good things to say about the school in general. So do an internet search about Seneca College in combination with both Red Hat and Mozilla and you can see if it's something that interests you.

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:48 pm

JP wrote:Well our robotics course was the most amount of work i did at Uni... seriously.. i piled so many hours into it trying to get our robot to do what it was meant to and it just wasn't working... But that wasn't really down to programming, rather down to poor equipment we were given to work with, otherwise it was great fun.

Basically programming games is cool, making some cool stuff happen on screen but imagine being able to program a robot that can actually move around and do stuff.. that's like even better (in some ways )

But from the sounds of it your robotics work probably wouldn't be that advanced maybe... We spent an entire semester on one robot and you've got other things to cover in your course such as stop lights, which doesn't sounds very challenging so i imagine it may be like a beginners robotics course or something.

Robotics is really fun, I did a paper in it last year. The entire internal assessment was done if your teams robot could track along a line only using a light sensor. My teams bot got to the end in record time, just as it decided to swerve off and do a 360.

The assessor took pity on us as passed us anyway. It was gut wrenching.

To the OP: see if there's any OOP programming papers, and try to take a paper that forces pedantic about commenting code. You'll figure out why when you start coding.

stevend · Post by **stevend** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:32 pm

well there is different courses i could take really. the stop light one is a seperate class that probably includes loadsmore things.

one room is full of all those robotic arms that you see if factories, really neat looking. i guess one class wrote a program for the robot to picup change and identify which coin it was and put it away

theres also this room where its a bunch of networked computers and its like a simulated reactor for something. if theres a glitch in the "system" student have to figure out how to fix it. also if there is a "serious meltdown" they have to work together to fix it.

we live near "chemical valley" and they fund the school so we have courses for alot of programming for industrial plants i suppose.

over all it looks really neat and im looking forward to it

jontan6 · Post by **jontan6** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:05 pm

i had a professor b4 who got his phd in japan doing robotics stuff. he said robotics is fun but seems not so much money in it. dunno if its true

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:25 pm

Unless your robots take up a life of crime, of course.

I'ma practin' my stabbin'. Hee ha! Hah hee ha!

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:26 pm

rogerborg wrote:Unless your robots take up a life of crime, of course.

I'ma practin' my stabbin'. Hee ha! Hah hee ha!

I lol'd

The Australians would have their robots getting their beer long before they would have to worry about robot crime

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:12 pm

Depends which way you're going - ask any electrical engineer or software engineer and they'll tell you that their route is the best.
I'm a software guy who lives in a country where software is not (yet) patentable, so I have the option to make money from my creations without worrying about who owns the ideas behind them. An EE friend of mine reckons that the only way for an inventor to make money nowadays is to either work for a big company who can afford to buy lots of intellectual property, or simply ignore patent law and try to stay one step ahead of the lawyers. When he invents something, he probably doesn't own it himself, its likely to be covered by multiple patents owned by IP companies and technology corporations. Just to find out if this is true or not it would cost thousands, so the only option is small-scale legally grey operations.
It's a shame that the laws put in place to encourage creativity actually stifle it

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:12 pm

bitplane wrote:I'm a software guy who lives in a country where software is not (yet) patentable,

Shhh, nobody tell him, he's in his Happy Place.

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:55 pm

rogerborg wrote:
bitplane wrote:I'm a software guy who lives in a country where software is not (yet) patentable,
Shhh, nobody tell him, he's in his Happy Place.

Hmm.. perhaps patentable is a bad choice of word. Still, patents on algorithms are not enforceable in Europe yet, and they won't be for as long as I live.

And yes, that's a threat.

jontan6 · Post by **jontan6** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:36 am

robots cant commit crime, it will violate the 3 laws of robotics

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:35 pm

jontan6 wrote:robots cant commit crime, it will violate the 3 laws of robotics

I-Robot anyone?