Posted on 06/02/2002 4:48:12 AM PDT by Hawkeye's Girl
I'm home for the summer from college, and I'm wondering what I could learn at in my free time. I already know Scheme, LabVIEW, and Matlab, and it'd be nice to study something that would be useful for electrical engineering. What should I get a book on? C++? Unix? Something else?
And for you, I would recommend the advice I gave in my #5. It would do wonders for that bitterness thing!
I'm a real-time software engineer. My work world is the world of assembly languages, microcode and a little occasional C. At home, on self-edification projects where I'm under no orders but my own, I use Java. It's convenient, portable, compact enough to be mastered in its entirety, and incorporates virtually all the major conceptual advances that are (slowly) dragging programming from art to science.
I don't know that you'd put Java to use in an electrical engineering context, though any language in which you can write useful programs is potentially applicable to everything. I do know that Java will be a useful arrow in your quiver later in your career, when you start to cross disciplines or move up the managerial food chain.
Another nice thing about Java is that you can get a decent compiler for it for free on the Web, or on CD if you buy any of a number of Java instructional books. Peter van der Linden's Just Java book is a good one-volume course which includes a Java 2.0 compiler for Windows, on an accompanying CD.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
Java won't help at all in the context of an EE, except perhaps to perform engineering computations or to make measurements available on a web page. There is no substitute for learning assembler and 'c' in the electrical engineering trade. I have often wished that the guys who designed the hardware I've worked on knew how to write software.
Think about your advice to a newbie EE to write in Java, then imagine that same person designing hardware for which you'd have to write software.
Java is a passing fad.
Judging by your reponses, you might try being a bit more introspective about your difficulties finding work in the embedded engineering marketplace. You might be losing opportunity through the interview process.
By the way, it has always helped to have a four year degree in engineering in order to obtain an engineering job. You were the one who chose the "Engineering Technology" major. If you would have done a little envestigating before making that move, you could have avoided that failing. If you want to do EE work, get an EE degree. If you want to do software work, get a software degree ... be selective here because "Information Technology" is not generally suitable for embedded programming.
Get the rivits out of your tounge, lip, and ears. (Just a guess.) Quit blaming everyone else for your crappy decisions, get an appropriate degree, then go follow your dreams. Honest, the jobs are out there. I'm working in a "startup" that is only two years old ... and that company employs 65 people who are EEs and/or embedded software types.
We only have the life that was given to us. I am going to make the best of mine. Resent every minute of yours if you like!
FRegards!
... they will have the guy that doesn't make everybody miserable in between 9 and 5. Seriously. Find some happiness.
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