I don’t think you actually need my permission to show my post(s) to anybody. They’re up on the web for all to see and I’m pretty sure that I’ve forfeit any copyright by posting it here (if not, consider it officially released into the public domain as of now). I’m a bit political on intellectual property issues, especially as it relates to the free expression and dissemination of ideas (protecting the rights of a democratic society versus the purely invented rights of content creators, which are still valuable mind you, but are also totally arbitrary and really only exist as a concession to their need to feed themselves with the fruits of their labor), so I’m just going to say that regardless of whether or not I give you permission, it’s totally okay to show my post(s) to anyone you like.

If you’re just asking as a point of courtesy then yes, you have my permission, and my apologies for the political rant. As for my name, I’d rather remain anonymous if that’s okay. I’m currently involved in the alumni association at my alma mater where I’m vehemently opposed to the direction that the CS department is currently headed. They’re moving everything to Java and OO programming and eliminating almost all mention of functional, declarative/logical and procedural paradigms from the curriculum except in those few classes where it might be useful to mention them. This means that an introductory AI course would spend as much time teaching Lisp as it does teaching AI, or they would just use Java (the new universal monkey wrench I suppose).

I’m not sure if having my name attached to another university’s efforts to lure prospective students would help my case with them at this point especially considering that most of their curriculum changes are a blatant attempt to attract more students by using the Java buzzword. If they don’t change their tune in another year (and restore the department I used to respect), I’ll start pointing prospective CS students in your direction myself though.

Also, I’d rather not have my name attached with the phrase “good C++”. :)

http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html

I took a 4 year degree in Mathematics, but have been writing software for more than 20 years. Like MEP, I’ve used a dozen different languages on a dozen different platforms. Although developing Cocoa software definitely kicks ass (and is just plain fun), the real professional knows when it is more appropriate to use AWK, MatLab, shell scripts, Python, or Lisp as the best tool for a specific task. The professional auto mechanic knows to use the appropriate sized fork tool to pry apart a ball joint, rather than trying to separate it by beating on a screwdriver with a Visual CrescentWrench++. Wait, the Snap-On man just delivered my new Visual CrescentWrench# with Torque.Net …

If you want to do Mac programming in undergraduate studies, choose a school that is at least partially platform agnostic. Here at Cal Poly SLO, Macs are represented heavily with a strong Apple section of the bookstore. Avoid any school that explicitly states it is “Windows only”.

Around my third year I bought “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X”, even though I had little C experience at the time. The book collected dust for a long time because I was so busy with the CS degree. Finally I cracked it, working on the project-oriented chapters. Even though I knew an object-oriented language like Java fairly well, the book really helped get introduced to key concepts fairly specific to Cocoa.

In my final year of my CS degree, I took an independent study project course, where I could define the curriculum. I decided to write a fully-featured Cocoa app, with the support of my Mac-friendly professor. What a great learning experience that was and I’m really grateful for it. See if there’s room for that in your programme at your university.

It’s important to stay interested and excited about what you are doing. If at any point you feel that it’s simply not what you thought it was cracked-up to be, then go onto something else and take the whole experience as a lesson.

Being a successful developer is far more than knowing and using programming languages. Furthermore, learning on your own is an inefficient way to proceed. If you are FIRMLY committed to software development (on any platform, for the job you get is more a matter of luck than foresight), then I suggest you look for computer science programs that specialize in software engineering. In fact there are degree programs in software engineering at the graduate level.

Software engineering is neither computer science nor is it programming. A good developer has to know about user and software requirements, system, software, and module design, software architecture, testing, languages, algorithms, human factors, usability, ethics, debugging, and a host of other topics. Knowledge in a domain (one of physics, business, biology, engineering, etc.) also helps immensely. This is based on my experience as a PhD in mathematics (long before there were many computer science degrees), teaching in mathematics, learning computer science on my own, doing research in computer science (on LALR parsing), many years teaching all levels of computer science (including putting out my own PhDs), and also years in the software industry.

However, let me also add that very few students really know what they want to do upon entering college. The buzz from the registrar’s office where I last taught for eighteen years was that students change their majors about four times on average during their pre-college and college years.

Before you commit yourself to Mac development, realize that Macs have changed drastically in the last five years. Pre OS X, they really were crap for about a decade (IMHO). Macs can and will change again. The whole industry can and will change again. Don’t lock yourself into any single idea or you’re career will wind up being very short.

Realize that no school anywhere is going to teach you Cocoa programming. You will have to learn that on your own no matter what. But that’s normal. I’ve developed software in C, C++, Perl, Ruby, Lisp, Java and Cocoa/Objective C. I’ve also used at least half a dozen other machine (but not programming) languages like HTML, CSS, SQL and LaTeX.

In school, I learned how to program in Lisp, Prolog, some Java, and a ton of really awful C++ (it wasn’t until my senior year that one of my instructors — not a professor either — finally showed us how to write good C++). As far as practical API and language knowledge goes, school was a waste of time for me.

But while there I learned about algorithms, software design (which is the most important part of software development and is not tied to any API really), problem analysis, mathematical concepts like discrete and linear algebra, and I learned about the major KINDS of programming languages (procedural, logical, functional and object oriented).

This foundation of knowledge made it easy for me to learn new languages when I needed them. The languages I used in school have rarely been put to use in my professional experience, but the knowledge I gained in school has been used every day since. Once you understand the concepts of programming in one language, it’s easy to learn any other language of the same type. The most you should look for in a school is a program that emphasizes studying the different KINDS of programming at least a little bit.

That means learning probably some Lisp (or a lisp deriviative, but perhaps they’ll use ML instead), probably some Prolog (since I can’t think of any other logical language), probably some OO language (this will likely be the primary language used in most modern programs — usually Java though I personally think that’s a poor choice) and at least some procedural experience with C or Pascal (or maybe even assembler if you’re lucky). It would also be a good idea if your program required you take at least one course on compiler design (trust me, it pays off in spades). Then the rest of your time will be spent studying analysis, design and math/algorithms (more algorithms than math probably).

Any CS course that lets you focus on software development should provide at leas that much. If the program focuses on other concepts, then the curriculum may not do all that.

Don’t try to find a program that focuses on one API or even advertises that it prepares you to work using the same API you’ll get a job in. Just get the best foundation of CS knowledge you can and then apply that knowledge to the area(s) you want to work in.

If you haven’t been to college yet, you’ll find that most of the time you have to work as hard at college as you do learning stuff on your own. If you don’t have the desire or work ethic to pick stuff up on your own, college isn’t going to help you.

Good luck, work hard, stay interested, and be prepared when things work out. What do they call luck? When opportunity meets preparation? It’s true.

Cheers

I majored in mechanical engineering and I program in an enginering company. I really don’t know how I would have been able to do my job without my engineering background. Most engineers live up to the stereotype of not being able to communicate well, so when I am developing apps for them, I have to fill in the blanks and read their minds to complete the task. I don’t know how a person with just a comp sci degree could deal with them. All the computer programming I learned in college was one semester of Fortran (hey, bigbang, was that one you forgot?) and I’ve taught myself C, C++ (until I puked), Objective-C, Java, AppleScript, etc. Computer langauges are easier than thermodynamics.

Engineering, physical and natural science, mathematics, business, architecture and even some arts are great fields to study that go into professions that have many opportunities for talented programmers.

Try to get into a good university that has a solid reputation in many fields. You’ll be surprised at what you’ll find when you get there. Some field you now barely know exists may become your calling.

It’s good to expose yourself to various languages: when you’re ready to learn Cocoa you can then do it easily since you have the underlying knowledge to do so. Very few good programmers have only ever used one language in my experience. Personally I’ve programmed in Pascal, C, C++, Objective-C. Modula-2, Basic, JavaScript, PHP, ActionScript, AppleScript and probably more that I can’t remember.