Computer Association of SIUE - Forums

I agree people should be learning several development methodologies in college.  I do not, however, think it's a problem that they concentrate on primarily one system in the early years.  I think it would be a mistake to go into too many areas right away.  The point of the core courses is to teach C++, not Visual Studio or GCC.  Those are just tools when the students should really be getting good with the language(s).

If you ask me, what SIUE teaches regarding VS is just a drop in the bucket.  They really do just concentrate on the core knowledge base that the students will need (fine in my opinion).  If SIUE was really spending its time teaching VS, it would really be teaching how to use VS for locating areas of code needing optimization in one way or another and slacking on the language(s) itself.  VS has lots of tools for optimization/debugging/etc take quite a bit of skill to use.

Making another post since modifying is for chumps.  Each professor does things differently, so just make sure to ask at the beginning of each semester.  IIRC Bouvier and Wang probably won't have a problem with you submitting a makefile and source code.  Socratis, Ehlman, White, and Yu will likely want you to make sure it compiles in VS.  No clue on Klein, Tetzner, Ehlman, Fujinoki, Stefik, or Mayer. 

Slight add, A recruiter for other Java Development positions from WashU showed up at last month's Java Users Group (http://java.ociweb.com/javasig/).  I actually didn't get their name because I wasn't actively looking for a job at the time.  No clue if they will be at the meeting again tonight, but I suppose there's a chance.  The talk tonight is on the Google Web Toolkit, which seems pretty interesting to me at least.  

Quite honestly, I've felt that this is SIUE's greatest shortfall.  They really love their Visual Studio and .NET so much that many people have no idea that alternatives exist until their Junior or Senior year.  I would suggest learning the differences between the compilers and how to write code that runs smoothly on both.  If you have any desire to be a c++ developer, you're going to have to learn it eventually...what better time than college. 

I'll see about letting CAOS members know about this =)

Brent, last I checked, I can make a C/C++ program in Visual Studio in just one file.  :-)  A bit of hyperbole, eh?

Most of the lower level courses use Visual Studio.  When you get to higher level courses, it really depends on the professor or course topic of interest.  Having said that, I've done a lot of both, and my opinion is that Visual Studio has the superior compiler.  Anyway, in the real world, you'll be using both (or hopefully LLVM+frontend in place of the aging GCC architecture); so, might as well learn them.  :-)

This post has been the best birthday present i've ever received.

Yeah, Visual studio blows (IMO), but allows for a nice baseline for everyone who uses windows to compile programs who are used to it (it's covered heavily in CS140). Linux isn't used in classes here, but believe me i wish it were. Sure, windows has it's place but to me (and im guessing you) there's just something natural about programming in a text editor, and the code that runs, that gets built, the entire system being just that one file...not 15 or 16 extra files and folders made from visual studio for an un-necessary small program.

That aside, I'm suppose to tell you to go to Greg's office up in 2024 if you have any issues with visual studio. You can do that still, but what I'm going to tell you is to email me, and get ahold of me for this week. or next week early.

I am a new transfer student to SIUE and am enrolled in CS 150 (Intro to Computing II). Our C++ we submit must compile in Visual Studio as that is what the instructor is using. Is it like this in all CS classes at SIUE? I am a long time linux user and have never had any experience with Visual Studio. Many of my programs I have developed, using vim + gcc, give me a ton of errors when I try to compile in Visual Studio. I thought I would just keep developing in linux and then fix any errors Visual Studio found when I was completed, but now I think I should be developing in Visual Studio full time. The amount of time I've wasted having to figure out why my application crashes unexpectedly while compiling fine in Visual Studio has been monumental. Ugh... Sad face.

Thank you very much Dr. Weinberg!

My name is Jim Eldred and I work at the Genome Center.  Scott Smith and I manage a team of 15 developers that are working to put together a world class open source suite of software to analyze data from the Genome Centers array of sequencing machines.  We work directly with scientists here at the center and collaborators all over the world to answer questions important to human health. Our focus over the last few years has been cancer research, but we also are currently doing work for the Human Microbiome Project.  If you have a passion for software engineering and the job description that Dr. Weinberg posted looks interesting to you please send your resume to me. jeldred@genome.wustl.edu
We also plan to attend the career fair on October 7th if we don't see you before then.

Sincerely

Jim Eldred
Operations Manager for Analysis Developers
The Genome Center
Washington University School of Medicine
jeldred@genome.wustl.edu