The perfect IT Education? (IT/Nerd Alert)

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

[me:]I used to work for a company ...

[you:] I could be a jerk, and point out that that company largely went belly-up, but that would be, well, jerkish.

Actually, I wasn't talking about that company, although you might want to take a look at their recent stock price.

My point was that people still do solder. Not on plug-and-play PC/VCR/cell phone, which are mass produced and can be tossed in the trash with impunity, but on more specialized boards.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Basic electronics
Digital Circuits
Processors
Modern Component Architectures and Design
Machine Code/Assembly


For a start.

[SlickWillard]

My point was that people still do solder. Not on plug-and-play PC/VCR/cell phone, which are mass produced and can be tossed in the trash with impunity, but on more specialized boards.

Yes, and for an extremely specialized group of people, it may very well prove highly profitable. Obviously a free market will determine precisely the situations in which it makes sense to perform specialized soldering.

However, probably 99.99999999999999999999% of the time, you'll be bumping heads with sweatshop labor in Taiwan/Singapore/Thailand/Vietnam/Communist China, if not prison labor, or even industrial robots, in which case it's insane to try to compete - just yank the part and replace it with one that's equally worthless.

PS: Did you see The Dead Zone last night? I'd say more, but if you haven't seen it, I don't wanna give away the ending. [Hint: Years ago, there was a Hans Solo/Star Wars novel that dealt with the same subject.]

[SlickWillard]

Actually, I wasn't talking about that company, although you might want to take a look at their recent stock price.

What's the status of your stock options with them? [Please don't say I dunno...]

[BushCountry]

Bump:

Because I like to fix circuits the good ole' fashion way. Soldering, cutting copper runs, drilling eyelets, mounting studs, and replacing a whole sections of the pc board was fun! It is one of my skills that to my regret has faded in history.

[SlickWillard]

I assuming you want the HelloWorld function to fire when the component(embed control) is activated (one time event per component focus). If this assumtion is correct then I would call the onBeforeActivate event. If you call the onActivate event of embed and press Tab you will see the HelloWorld dialog. That really sucks because of the extra obscure keystrokes needed. The onLoad event is generally a web page or VB form event sink not a general component event in most cases. Hope this helps.

But according to the relevant page at MSDN, the onLoad event "[f]ires immediately after the browser loads the object" and is a valid event for the EMBED DHTML object.

I'm so sick and damn tired of documentation that's flat out wrong [or just a pack of sales & marketing lies] that I think my head is gonna explode.

[csconerd]

Can't forget these as required reading:

TCP/IP Illustrated (all 3 volumes) - Stevens
Digital Telephony - John C. Bellamy
The Guide to T1 Internetworking - Flanagan

and finally (and only because I wrote it and will shamelessly plug it on a geek thread)

Cisco Press Remote Access Exam Ceritification Guide - Morgan

[BushCountry]

bttt

[stainlessbanner]

Good responses from all on the thread - I'll weigh in with some thoughts.

1. Students need to be taught the basics - how to read/write/basic math. Many students reach senior level courses without basic comprehension skills.
   
2. Teach methodology and process; perhaps how to think and approach problems. Technology changes so quickly, it's tough to teach a student specific software/hardware versions.

On the courses, I like the human behaviors/humanities requirement. Good sys analysts will pay attention to human behaviors when designing systems (perhaps that is why so many IT systems fail?). Unversitities and the DoD are keying in on human engineering right now. I would keep those.

Aside from the basic skills comprehension, the other issue some folks had on the thread was the alignment of IT and Business goals. You might consider more business courses - every IT person should know about the effects of markets, business drivers, competition, etc.

Some of my comments may be better suited for a 4-year degree. Just my .02

Are you an instructor, BC?

 

[stainlessbanner]

< for comments >

[dr_who_2]

I see, thanks. Very helpful....but still evil.

[BushCountry]

Bump one last time.

[Cronos]

Maybe more time ought to be spent on analysis, design, a lot more.

[BushCountry]

Bumpity, bump, bump....

[Cronos]

Ping))))))

Analysis, Design, Analysis, Design. Any 'bot can code

[Just_de_facts]

Start them out with Donald Knuths' three volume set, "The Art of Programming ". If they can't master that, then send them to law school or have them run for political office.