boeman posted:

I definitely don't see why that would be the case.

Avenging Dentist posted:

The Fortran standard dictates that the division of two integers returns the integer nearest the actual result, and between said result and zero.

Unparagoned posted:

Any other advice?

Inverse square posted:

games and C++

Unparagoned posted:

I've just got a pickit 3 with with a PIC18F45K20 demo board. After some hassle I've managed to get MPLab IDE working and am able to program to it. I'm programing in C. I've just got a few questions/concerns

...

Any other advice?

rt4 posted:

You won't make it doing that without a really solid grounding in CS.

But yeah, companies do hire interns and inexperienced programmers occasionally. At present, though, it's hard enough for experienced programmers to find work. Your best bet at finding a paying gig is web applications.

All kinds of unqualified people tend to slip into those roles.

Inverse square posted:

Are there any places you can imagine that have a lower bar for entry but can help you improve?

rt4 posted:

There's tons and tons of people using sticks to dig holes because they either don't know that shovels exist or think they're too difficult to use.

yatagan posted:

There are just as many people using laser guided military grade titanium super-shovels to see what the ground is made of when all they need to do is go poke it with a stick.

Inverse square posted:

Just had a look at the flexibility of my degree, and I wouldn't be able to do much CS without giving up Philosophy, which isn't going to happen.

More fun plan though: I'll just sneak into CS lectures and be half arsed about the official stuff. Might even do CS assignments every so often. Guess I'll have to quit a few societies though...

Avenging Dentist posted:

You do realize that you're basically asking "how do I become a good enough programmer to work in a field with one of the highest barriers to entry without any formal training?" It's not that this can't be done; but if you have to ask how to learn stuff on your own, then your chances of succeeding are slim to none.

1337JiveTurkey posted:

One of the big risks of learning to program by yourself is that there's not anyone else around to point out established solutions, provide feedback and to keep you from picking up bad habits. With practice it's possible to reach that point of self-reflection where you can look back at your code and see what went right and what didn't. However a lot of people never do reach that point and end up writing most of the content of the Coding Horrors thread. It compiles and technically produces the correct answer at least some of the time but it's slow, buggy and wouldn't exist if there was some sort of feedback mechanism.

Avenging Dentist posted:

That's why you write massively overambitious projects that ultimately end with you coding yourself into a corner if you're not good enough yet.

GrumpyDoctor posted:

I have started trying to teach myself Haskell (via Project Euler), but I still haven't quite wrapped my brain around the "Haskell way." (I am posting this here because there isn't a Haskell thread.) For example...

code:

memoized_fib :: Int -> Integer
memoized_fib =
   let fib 0 = 0
       fib 1 = 1
       fib n = memoized_fib (n-2) + memoized_fib (n-1)
   in  (map fib [0 ..] !!)

Why does this memoize? I don't understand why the recursive definition doesn't cause reinvocation of map.

rt4 posted:

Any recommendations for books to get me started into fractals?

I don't see anything in my ACM virtual bookshelf.

ShoulderDaemon posted:

GrumpyDoctor posted:

This is hugely helpful, thanks.

shrughes posted:

Ok, now explain to yourself why this doesn't memoize:

code:

memoized_fib :: Int -> Integer
memoized_fib = \n ->
     let fib 0 = 0
         fib 1 = 1
         fib n = memoized_fib (n-2) + memoized_fib (n-1)
     in (map fib [0 ..] !!) n

And similarly for this:

code:

memoized_fib :: Int -> Integer
memoized_fib =
     let fib 0 = 0
         fib 1 = 1
         fib n = memoized_fib (n-2) + memoized_fib (n-1)
     in (\n -> (map fib [0 ..] !!) n)