Why Computer Science can be fun (and frustrating)
Entry posted by Makoto_the_Phoenix
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I keep promising that I'll get my super-secret open-source program outlined here, and rest assured, I will this week. 
I just need a scanner to get some things to a digital format, first.
Anyways, on to the nature of this blog's post: Three reasons each why CS is fun and frustrating.
Why CS is fun:
- You get to do nifty projects with things that you've never tinkered with before. Who'd think that I could write my own programming language at the end of a semester?
- You get to look into interesting subject matters, and explore the cutting edge of software languages. Google Go is a prime example of that - check it out at www.golang.org .
- You can look back on your projects and say that you truly enjoyed creating them. Let me tell you, LISP was tons of fun. Writing my own lexer for this language is fun, too.
Why CS is frustrating:
- Insomnia. Need I elaborate on this? It'll be 3AM when I post this, and I would like to wake up before 10:30AM. Yeah, that's gonna happen.
- Complexity of programs. Defining things so that they're nice and neat can get tedious. Especially when you're both 1) pressed for time and 2) slightly sleep depraved.
- Amount of extra time spent outside of class learning things. I still owe myself 144 hours of free time from last year learning the complexity of about a dozen different sorts.
For those that are interested in the subject matter, be prepared to spend a lot of time working at it. And I mean working hard. Some of the things may come to you as second nature, and others may come to you as about as easy to understand as Sanskrit, but be prepared.
Totally unrelated: Ubuntu One is a very effective cloud-based storage system. 2GB free and 50GB for $120/yr. I would sooner drop the cash on a portable drive (with 5 or 6 times more storage), but 2GB for free to keep my code synchronized between my tower and my laptop is quite nice. Now only if the damn thing would let me synchronize individual folders instead of being isolated to the "Ubuntu One" directory...
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