Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-09-04 10:34 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-09-04 10:34 pm
Entry tags:
Computer science education as applicable to everyday hair-pulling tech support problems: discuss.
Sometimes, with all my floofy liberal arts shit, I forget that I am a computer science major. Then somebody asks me to fix their computer and I give the usual spiel about how CS isn't all programming and programming isn't directly applicable to navigating the idiosyncracies of a junkware-ridden WinXP box, then agree to do it anyway. Because I cannot resist puppy eyes, because I enjoy solving problems, and because if I fix it somebody will owe me a drink.
50% of garden-variety "hey you're a CS major can you fix it" computer problems can be solved by this xkcd strip. Lots of things that are more technical--in this case, weird driver software that was trying to control the wireless configuration--can be solved by looking up obscure error codes instead of flailing at them, reading program documentation, and using process of elimination to isolate the problem.
Then I remember that this is how debugging in general works.
Then I remember the old chestnut that 90% of your time is spent debugging 10% of your code, and I facepalm as I realize that programming is applicable to navigating the idiosyncracies of a junkware-ridden WinXP box. Not in the sense of YOU ARE TECHIE YOU MAGICALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT WORK, but in the sense that programming is, in and of itself, a crash course in troubleshooting Shit What's Fucked Up. And honestly, I think I'd take a junkware-ridden WinXP box over a steaming heap of badly-written Java any day of the week. Especially if somebody owes me a steaming cup of well-made java when I'm done.
50% of garden-variety "hey you're a CS major can you fix it" computer problems can be solved by this xkcd strip. Lots of things that are more technical--in this case, weird driver software that was trying to control the wireless configuration--can be solved by looking up obscure error codes instead of flailing at them, reading program documentation, and using process of elimination to isolate the problem.
Then I remember that this is how debugging in general works.
Then I remember the old chestnut that 90% of your time is spent debugging 10% of your code, and I facepalm as I realize that programming is applicable to navigating the idiosyncracies of a junkware-ridden WinXP box. Not in the sense of YOU ARE TECHIE YOU MAGICALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT WORK, but in the sense that programming is, in and of itself, a crash course in troubleshooting Shit What's Fucked Up. And honestly, I think I'd take a junkware-ridden WinXP box over a steaming heap of badly-written Java any day of the week. Especially if somebody owes me a steaming cup of well-made java when I'm done.