[OT] destroy all software (was Programming language WATs)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:ykmzlppuwncgmvgzszbr at dfeed.kimsufi.thecybershadow.net...
> On Saturday, 21 January 2012 at 04:20:16 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> The "college == good" brainwashing MUST STOP, period
>
> Aye. What's incredible is I've hard these arguments on
> other websites, and a *lot* of people fight it.
>
> Alas, I'm watching this video still, and it gets way too
> political as it goes on... even I am tempted to write the
> authors off as nutty, and I agree with most the college stuff!
>

Yea, I just stopped at the end of the intro (3 minutes) because I knew that 
even if it didn't get nutty, I wouldn't have the patience to listen to more 
without getting too pissed off and stressed out over it. Hell, I've mostly 
been trying to forget school.

But that's the problem with persuasive videos/speeches/etc: Anyone who's 
willing to watch already agrees anyway. :/

> Anyway, I started arguing that college just isn't a good
> financial decision for a lot of people. Sure, there's
> exceptions, but people need to take a serious look at the
> cost/benefit for their specific case and consider all the
> other options, including just starting to work immediately.
>
> This argument quickly became a full blown flamewar.
>
> When I was in high school, there was no discussion of
> alternatives. When I was asked if I was going to college,
> I replied "of course", as if it was a stupid question.
> I think this same attitude caused the flamewar.
>
> We're conditioned to see it as not an option with pros
> and cons, but as the *only* path that's obviously all good.
>

It absolutely is a sacred cow. There's *no* doubt about that.

What *really* pissed me off was when I was deciding I was done with college, 
*that's* when some administrators and instructors were willing to say things 
like "college isn't right for everyone". Can you believe it? Yea, *that's* a 
fine time to tell people things like that. *After* they've gone into debt to 
line your greedy goddamn pockets...

Speaking of college greed, when I was at BGSU in the early 2000's, the 
university president (don't remember his name, but I'm sure it can be looked 
up) laid off 5 or 6 teachers and, at the same time, gave himself a $40k/yr 
raise (it was already around $200k/yr *before*). I say lock them all up.

> Maybe that was true twenty years ago, but it isn't now.
>
> (besides, autodidacts rock.)

Fuck yea they do! And I'm not just saying that because I am one. All the 
best professionals I've known, to my knowledge, have been primarily 
self-taught in their trade. All the worst ones were invariably people who 
learned in college classes.

Which brings up another point: HR people do it completely ass-backwards. If 
I were hiring, the resumes with a heavy "degrees and academic achievements" 
focus would be the first ones in the trash, not the first ones called in 
(unless I wanted to go all Steve Jobs on their asses ;) ). Hell, I even have 
a good friend who's a web dev manager with hiring authority, and he's echoed 
just how terrible those fancy-degree people (sent to him by his 
organization's HR dept) inevitably are. It's a cycle of shit and it *needs* 
to stop. The moron-brigades have already fucked our society over far too 
much, and left alone it'll only get worse.

Another example: around the time I was leaving BGSU (or maybe just a little 
after), the CS dept's website was *genuinely boasting* about a phenomenal 
achievement from [a few of] their CS graduate students: They wrote a program 
that ran on PalmOS. Yup! That's it! It wasn't even anything in particular, 
the faculty was chest-beating over the mere fact they got anything running 
on the PalmOS at all. Jesus fuck, that's the biggest brightest thing their 
**GRAD** students could handle? To pull their heads out of their asses 
*just* enough to write vaguely-real software? I had *already* been doing 
that as a *freshman* around a couple years prior! It ain't hard: You grab 
the device, you grab the compiler, you open the docs, and you move your 
fingers on the keyboard - just like any other half-way competent coder. What 
a bunch of utterly worthless self-deluded fucks.