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When you're more competent than the teacher

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  • When you're more competent than the teacher

    I'm currently sitting in my Mobile App Development Class. Don't judge, I've already finished my work for the day and am waiting for the teacher to catch up so she can take attendance and I can leave.

    Why does the teacher need to catch up with me? Well, because she can't follow basic instructions.

    This class is Java based, and having not taken any Java courses, I don't have much of a clue what I'm doing. However, I can follow basic instructions. How basic? Here's an example:
    type protected void onListItemClick(ListView l, View v, int position, long id)
    Most of the instructions we're using are just like that, telling us exactly what to do. And somehow, this woman who's been supposedly doing this for years, manages to screw that up. Either she skips entire steps, misspells something, or just can't read the screen well enough to figure out what the error is. I get this done faster by just reading the textbook and following instructions on my own.

    Oy.
    The fact that jellyfish have survived for 650 million years despite not having brains gives hope to many people.

    You would have to be incredibly dense for the world to revolve around you.

  • #2
    You'll run into that in the real world too. Believe me.
    Last edited by mjr; 10-05-2016, 03:43 PM.
    Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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    • #3
      I had a similar situation in a CAD class while I was studying for machine shop.
      Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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      • #4
        I had a teacher in the local tertiary institution who was teaching us Linux. I am a Unix administrator and have done "Train the Trainer" courses in Unix (not Linux) and I was doing the course so I could get a Diploma in computer science.

        Snippets from the class:-

        T - Teacher
        M - Not the teacher

        T: So this is the directory ETC (pronouncing it Et-Sa).
        M: Isn't is etcetera?
        T: No no, you don't know much about Unix, do you?
        M: It's always been called etcetera.
        T: In Linux it's "et-sa"
        M:...

        T: So a file can be called anything in Linux.
        M: Can the file be called "-rf"?
        (Note this is well known to experienced Unix admins as that is an option for the removal program "rm" so you could never remove a file called "-rf" with rm.)
        T: Yes!
        (All sorts of emotions cross his face as he thinks it through)
        T: Er... no I don't think so.
        M: So a file can't be called anything?
        T: There are some limitations.
        M: Can a file be called "*"?
        T: (Exasperated) No.
        M: Can a file be called "-"?
        T: ...
        M: What about "?"?

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        • #5
          Quoth gerund View Post
          T: So this is the directory ETC (pronouncing it Et-Sa).
          M: Isn't is etcetera?
          T: No no, you don't know much about Unix, do you?
          M: It's always been called etcetera.
          T: In Linux it's "et-sa"
          I was taught yes the directory was etcetera (etc for short) and pronounced Et-Se (hard e not soft a)

          but this might be some "regional" thing so a matter of semantics and pronunciation
          I'm lost without a paddle and headed up SH*T creek.
          -- Life Sucks Then You Die.


          "I'll believe corp. are people when Texas executes one."

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          • #6
            Quoth Racket_Man View Post
            pronounced Et-Se (hard e not soft a)
            but this might be some "regional" thing so a matter of semantics and pronunciation
            Listen to the sound byte here

            The Unix and Linux directory /ETC has always been the shortened form of "et cetera"

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            • #7
              heh. I remember being "trained" on a photo lab system by someone hired by the lowest bidder.
              Not the trainers fault, she was just told to read off the script, but it was funny to see her trying to press the brightness up button on the monitor to turn the sound out, forcing me to just reach over and rotate the volume knob about 3cm to the left of said buttons

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              • #8
                This is going WAY back, but where I went to school, they made everyone take a course in BASIC, even the people who weren't there to take computer courses. The whole thing was pretty useless in my opinion. If you were a computer person, chances were you already knew BASIC. And if you weren't a computer person, the whole thing could be pretty confusing.

                One of my friends, who was a non-computer person, and always having trouble with it, always came to me for help instead of the teacher, mainly because everything he tried to tell her went right over her head. One day, I was sitting in the classroom doing nothing, because my programming assignment had been finished a long time ago. My friend came in from the lab and asked me if I could take a look at her program, which she was still having trouble with. I followed her into the lab, and the teacher followed both of us.

                She showed me her program listing and told me, "I made these changes to it, and it's still not working!" I took one look at it and said, "Well that's not right! What idiot told you to do that?"

                As soon as I said that, the teacher quickly turned around and left the lab. I looked at my friend, she just nodded her head, and then we both started laughing.

                Quoth gerund View Post
                T: So a file can be called anything in Linux.
                That reminds me of something another teacher said when I was taking COBOL (once again, going way back.) Some of us were confused by the paragraph names in the sample program listings from the book, and he told us, "You don't have to call it that. You can call it anything you want. You could call it 'Horse Shit' if you really wanted to, but please don't."
                Sometimes life is altered.
                Break from the ropes your hands are tied.
                Uneasy with confrontation.
                Won't turn out right. Can't turn out right

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                • #9
                  Quoth gerund View Post
                  M: Can the file be called "-rf"?
                  M: Can a file be called "*"?
                  M: Can a file be called "-"?
                  M: What about "?"?
                  The answer to all of those is "yes". You just have to jump through some hoops:
                  $ touch \*
                  $ touch \?
                  $ touch -- -rf
                  $ echo "" > -
                  $ ls -l
                  total 4
                  -rw-r--r-- 1 deserted users 0 Oct 9 10:45 *
                  -rw-r--r-- 1 deserted users 1 Oct 9 10:46 -
                  -rw-r--r-- 1 deserted users 0 Oct 9 10:45 -rf
                  -rw-r--r-- 1 deserted users 0 Oct 9 10:45 ?
                  So yes, it's possible... but usually not a good idea.
                  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
                  OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
                  she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
                  Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

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                  • #10
                    Quoth Deserted View Post
                    The answer to all of those is "yes". You just have to jump through some hoops:


                    So yes, it's possible... but usually not a good idea.
                    But that's the point of my story. I knew files could be created in those names, because in my career as a Unix administrator I had come across files called that. I had to devise a way to delete those files because they could not be accessed but the normal everyday programs we used like "vi" and "rm" and "mv" or "tar".

                    The teacher was supposed to teach us Linux and he had no idea that files could be named that and (obviously) had never seen those files in real life or tried to do anything with them.

                    As far as it not being a good idea, have you ever seen a whole nights backup fail because of a file called "-"? Not only is hard to find why the backup failed, it's then really hard to remove that file. I think I finally settled on "rm -i *" and then hitting the "n" key about a hundred times and "y" once.

                    BTW I knew I was being annoying to the teacher but it was because he constantly annoyed me with his obvious lack of knowledge and his lack of enough self-awareness that he did not have the knowledge.
                    Last edited by gerund; 10-10-2016, 01:31 AM. Reason: Being annoying (Are we there yet?)

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                    • #11
                      mc can handle them fine. Just sayin'. And I'm sure a script could've been written using 'find' or similar.

                      At the tech school I went to, my class was the first one to have Linux at all. (This was in 2000.) Rather than, say, buying a set of textbooks, the two instructors wrote them, and it was miserable. I mean, it was pretty good considering neither of them really knew Linux, but still. Another guy in my class and I were the only two who had any experience with Linux at all, and we did almost as much teaching as the instructors did.
                      Last edited by Deserted; 10-10-2016, 04:24 AM. Reason: commentary!
                      Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
                      OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
                      she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
                      Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Quoth gerund View Post
                        T: So this is the directory ETC (pronouncing it Et-Sa).
                        M: Isn't is etcetera?
                        Usually most people I've talked with pronounce it "etsy", like the website. I think (hope??) most of us know it's an abbreviation for "et cetera" (Latin for "and other things").
                        “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                        One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                        The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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                        • #13
                          Quoth Nunavut Pants View Post
                          Usually most people I've talked with pronounce it "etsy", like the website. I think (hope??) most of us know it's an abbreviation for "et cetera" (Latin for "and other things").
                          This is what I was going for in my post above. Now that I think about it not a hard e but a y sound

                          Thanks.
                          I'm lost without a paddle and headed up SH*T creek.
                          -- Life Sucks Then You Die.


                          "I'll believe corp. are people when Texas executes one."

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