h a l f b a k e r yBaker Street Irregulars
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Nudge them into college
find students right on the admit GPA cutoff then encourage them to retake classes, upping their grades, while skipping some electives. | |
I do not really remember the numbers but I think I read that college graduates earn almost twice as much money as high school-only graduates. I perceive they have more enjoyable forms of employment as well.
In Oregon (US) most universities have a 3.0 GPA admissions cutoff. So, is there a way a 2.9
student can improve so as to approximately double their lifetime earnings?
There is! They can re-take classes, particularly the ones they are already good at. My perception is that 3rd and 4th year students have several elective slots, and possibly elective requirements. School districts could modify the requirements to permit retaking classes that have already been passed, skipping the electives.
Let's say you like math and got a 3.0; However you sucked at Journalism and got a 2.3. Wise people could run the numbers and likely find that your grades would improve more at things you were already good at (and liked). Perhaps they could extrapolate the students new math grade as 3.3. Aware of that, school districts could look kindly on retaking classes.
The social benefit: people actually learn more math or English.
Now for the controversy. Actuarial science could predict the likely GPA raise from reattending and then make that the standard grade raise, applicable to all re-take students. It works on insurance, so it might work in education. The benefit there is that if three more re-take students are added to a class of 25 the teacher does not have to actually view or grade the work, just collect it. That minimizes the extra burden on teachers and staffing levels.
Based on the actuarial GPA a third year student with a 2.8 could know exactly which classes to retake to be eligible for college.
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From what I know of the current state of the education
system in the UK, the basic philosophy is that (a) the
student is a customer (b) they are paying to get
qualifications, ergo (c) they must get said qualifications.
Most qualifications now depend heavily on "ongoing
assessment", which is code for "before you hand that in,
here's what you need to change to get a pass grade". |
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Many educational establishments are proud of the fact that
no student fails, which is equivalent to saying that they
have no standards whatsoever. I'm not against retakes
completely, but the point of exams is to test ability, not
just persistence. If I'm an employer, I want to know
whether a candidate was good enough to pass first time or
not. If I'm a university, likewise. |
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Maybe qualifications should be annotated according to the
number of retakes they required. |
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"Experience is the harshest teacher, because she gives the test first and the lesson afterwards". |
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We need fewer people going to college, not more |
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^ Disagree. What we need better access to education without wealth being a factor. |
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Why wasn't I born in the Netherlands dammit?! |
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Wait! Wait! I've got it!
Next federal election we just all cross out every candidates name and write Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand on the ballots! |
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I mean. How many Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinandses can there be?
It's pretty specific. |
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Trade schools, apprenticeships, etc are a good thing.
There will always be not-university-bound people.
Making everyone
as smart / wise as their potential is the goal. |
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//not relevant to life as it was a technical subject// |
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Just out of curiosity, [bigs], what degree did you do, and why? |
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// but I think I read that college graduates earn almost
twice as much money as high school-only graduates. // |
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I wonder how much it is that going to college allows one
to earn more vs. those people who have what it takes to
get into and succeed in college also have what it takes to
earn a large pay check. |
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I'm not saying college is a waste by any means, but
squeezing in more marginal students at the bottom might
not be very useful, especially if they do it by sitting
through repeats of classes they were already good at. |
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//^ Disagree. What we need better access to education
without wealth being a factor// |
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Is that like the Seinfeld episode where they talk about
the "I
wish I was taller cartoon"? Though I suppose with CRSPR
that's somewhat dated, or soon to be. |
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Disagree on what basis? I'd certainly agree we need
access
to BETTER education, but more access to education? Who
lacks it exactly? |
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Learning should be a lifelong affair, and as such it is
available to all, up to and including online classes from
every major institution of learning to the latest BBC
documentary. |
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Certification is just a priesthood game designed to
extract prepayment (often completely unaffordable
prepayment), and a huge transfer of wealth from the
"uncertified", to the purveyors of certification, as
attested to by the exploding student debt in the US and
elsewhere. |
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Putting the burden for such debt on the taxpayer would
only serve to further reduce moral hazard while not
addressing any actual economic need, other than the
desire of professors to maintain their standard of living |
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//Disagree on what basis? I'd certainly agree we need access to BETTER education, but more access to education? Who lacks it exactly?// |
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Why, everyone stuck in the public education system lacks it of course. By the time you teach yourself what your aptitudes are, you're asking others if they want fries with that. It's horseshit. |
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//Learning should be a lifelong affair, and as such it is available to all, up to and including online classes from every major institution of learning to the latest BBC documentary.// |
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Hallelujah!
Let's see, eight hours for sleep, ten hours for work and commute, two hours prepping, cooking and cleaning after eating... one good bowel movement later... and I can spare about two hours a day... if shit doesn't hit the fan. |
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Yep. Available to all. I'll be catching up any old day now. |
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//Certification is just a priesthood game designed to extract prepayment (often completely unaffordable prepayment), and a huge transfer of wealth from the "uncertified", to the purveyors of certification, as attested to by the exploding student debt in the US and elsewhere// |
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Well now you're just preachin to the choir.
I don't give two shits about certification. I just want the ability to learn the things I want to learn in something other than twenty minute increments. |
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It's not so much to ask, and they seem to be able to pull it off just fine in the Netherlands without all the mind-fuck consumerism that seems to steer our western educational practices. |
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//Putting the burden for such debt on the taxpayer would only serve to further reduce moral hazard while not addressing any actual economic need, other than the desire of professors to maintain their standard of living.// |
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Tell it to Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand. |
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Maybe he'll be convinced that's what his people really want... as he rides the public transit and talks to actual people. |
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////Certification is just a priesthood game designed to
extract prepayment (often completely unaffordable
prepayment), and a huge transfer of wealth from the
"uncertified", to the purveyors of certification,// |
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Yes and no. There's certainly a lot of that. However, if
I'm an employer, and if a candidate has a good degree from
a good university, that's useful information to me. There
might be another candidate who has studied just as hard
and is just as good, but who has not got a degree - but I
would need some solid evidence of their abilities and
knowledge. |
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The problem would be solved if governments did the right
thing. I went through state school (no cost), state VIth form
(no cost), Cambridge undergrad (no cost, and the state paid
my living expenses) and Oxford postgrad (no cost; I got a
salary). Charging for university (undergrad) is relatively
new in the UK, and is an abhorrence. All education should
be paid for by the state, as
part of its basic duties. |
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Major universities are among the richest entities in the
world, and already give free tuition to anyone who is
qualified in the US. Many Ivy League students do not pay. |
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The current US system is horrible, because students are
encouraged that college is necessary, go to private
universities take degrees that often do not position them
for a career, and in the process take on loans in excess of
$120,000. Public universities are better, and can range
anywhere from almost nothing to about $60K for a four
year degree. Student debt now exceeds a trillion dollars. |
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Given the easy availability of student loans, and the
encouragement about the necessity of college, tuition
more than doubled in a decade. |
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The one thing NOT to do here is make taxpayers pay for
this -- that will only serve these costs to explode further. |
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Sounds like the sub-prime mortgage thing all over again. Funny how history repeats itself .. almost as if your species doesn't learn from its previous mistakes. |
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Our (USA) education system is broken from Kindergarten to
Uni. Homeschooling has become the only logical way to opt
out. But few can afford to have just one person working. |
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This really makes me mad. |
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//The one thing NOT to do here is make taxpayers pay for
this// |
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But, in the UK, the state *did* pay for all university places
(and also supported the students while they were there) for
many decades. Costs did not explode, and large numbers of
students went to university who would not otherwise have
been able to do so. It worked OK. |
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Max, that's because you got ahead of the game before the
costs went silly. It's a bit late for that now here. We're
flying a plane with the tail on fire. |
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I run into too many homeschoolers here whose
schoolmasters I do not trust as effective, correct, unbiased
sources of quality instruction. Hence our current situation
with anti-vaxers, rampant junk science, and poor
discernment in some circles. |
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// students went to university who would not otherwise have been able to do so // |
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That sort of thing only encourages the proles to have ideas above their station in life. They'll be wanting to teach women to read next ... |
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// few can afford to have just one person working. // |
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Easy. Send the kids off to work in a coal mine, or a cotton mill, or sweeping chimneys - then one of the parents can stay home. |
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If you have enough kids, both parents can stay home. It's foolproof ... |
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// flying a plane with the tail on fire. // |
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That's not good. You should tell someone. |
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// unbiased sources of quality instruction. // |
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There's no such things as an unbiased source, outside quantum physics. |
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Do they dislike all DEC equipment, or are they OK with the PDP series and its derivatives ? OK VMS isn't the greatest OS ever, but the machines themselves are pretty solid. |
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// rampant junk science, // |
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Please do not talk that way to [MB], he does his best. He needs encouragement and understanding, not gratuitous hurtful criticism*. |
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// poor discernment in some circles // |
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Not just circles, you get the same problem on the District, the Metropolitan and the Northern, particularly on one of those days when [IT] manages to chew through the straps and go a-wandering ... |
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*We don't object at all to the gratuitous hurtful criticism, it's just that he gets plenty already and doesn't seem to need or want any extra. |
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//It's a bit late for that now here.// |
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Maybe. Maybe not. Before we had state-paid university
(which I think only began in the 19-somethings), it was all
paid for by the students' families or the students
themselves. |
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All the government has to do is to say "If you're a university,
and you want official recognition as a university by the
state, then you need to take students for free, and the
government will pay you $XYZ per student." It worked in
the UK. Something similar worked to establish the NHS (in
the mid-1900's), and I suspect our healthcare costs are
better controlled than yours. |
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For 2016 the gov't gave school boards $11,415Cdn per Gr's 1-12 student. Notwithstanding that's a ridiculous amount for a 20-30 pupil classroom, giving it to homeschoolers (minus a k or two for independently testing the hell out of students a couple times a semester to make sure) makes more than a little sense. |
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For that matter, a single teacher with an extra room in the house could handle 4-5 independent level studiers in the neighbourhood, or - given the modern de rigeur of driving children to school - 10 as a single-grade group, servicing a slightly larger area. Plus, an uncomplicated breakfast and lunch. |
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//But, in the UK, the state *did* pay for all university
places (and also supported the students while they were
there) for many decades. Costs did not explode, and large
numbers of students went to university who would not
otherwise have been able to do so. It worked OK.// |
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To Ray's point, costs have already exploded, and are on a
trajectory that is difficult to bend. |
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Further, the universities excel at selling degrees that are
"easy" to complete but hard to use. These costs (even the
Trillion dollars in debt) would be next to nothing if that
was all scientists lawyers and doctors. But these are
overwhelmingly purely "certification" degrees. |
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Finally -- in NYC you have an excellent CUNY (City
University of New York) where costs are actually
negligible for a resident. State schools are relatively
cheap. |
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What the middle class has engaged in is self-
congratulatory placement in useless expensive private
schools for useless degrees for their exceedingly average
children -- and if they don't learn from this colossal
financial mistake (and govt. funding would absolutely
prevent this learning) it will be yet one more entitlement
that breaks society's back |
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// if they don't learn from this colossal financial mistake (and govt. funding would absolutely prevent this learning) // |
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"Sounds like the sub-prime mortgage thing all over again. Funny how history repeats itself .. almost as if your species doesn't learn from its previous mistakes." |
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Is there an echo in here ... ? |
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yes, Borg, this has contributed to the slowdown of an entire
generational cycle, with loans being so high they are a
factor in millennials becoming independent, buying a house,
getting married, etc. Of course the Great Recession itself
was a major factor in reducing opportunities to the
graduates over the last decade. |
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We consider that the process can be summarized as follows: |
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1. Rather stupid politicians, who can talk a good game but don't really understand the issues, create one-size-fits-all rule-based administrative systems as a reaction to a perceived problem, which has in the time lag between perception and action changed considerably. |
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2. Minds infinitely superior to theirs scrutinize the new system, compare it with the current situation, and identify the flaws and weaknesses in the design. |
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3. Inevitably, these weaknesses are ruthlessly exploited, making a small number of individuals very wealthy, and correspondingly impoverishing a large number of voters, who know deep down that the only free cheese is in mousetraps, but irrationally hope that just this once there really will be jam tomorrow. |
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4. The Law of Unintended Consequences and the Law of Supply and Demand rise like kraken from the murky depths, where they have been slumbering unheeded since the last disaster/crisis, and proceed to chew the soft dangly bits off anyone who had assumed that the monsters had been killed, forever. |
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5. There are the usual screams of pain, and the inevitable readjustment of the market. Voters, the ones with the tooth marks in nasty places, demand action ... |
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1. Rather stupid politicians, who can talk a good game but don't really understand the issues, create one-size-fits-all rule-based administrative systems as a reaction to a perceived problem, which has in the time lag between perception and action changed considerably ... |
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Repeat, ad nauseam, while a Greek Chorus of media pundits declaim "We told you so ! " |
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We had an old CISC VAX at college that was thankfully
retired by an RISCy Alpha while I was there. Because I find
playing with eunuchs in general frightfully confusing and
boring given the dearth of recognizable (read LOGO or GW-
BASIC or perhaps Etch-A-Sketch) commands, my interaction
with either was
mercifully limited to launching a Mathematica processing
kernel, and occasionally running an EMACS editor. |
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I initially studied Physics with Professor Imichiu Kaku (the
one you see on many of the pop-sci documentaries) at
CUNY. |
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Then Electrical Engineering when I realized I wasn't going
to become a physicist. |
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In the process I had to take a Fortran class, where got
some initial assignment like calculating the value of e |
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After that I came home, and said to my very young but
long suffering wife (it was 3 years part-time in school by
that time) -- omg, they PAY people for this |
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And the rest, as they say, is history |
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Oh god, FORTRAN. Another class I would've gladly skipped.
-77? |
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Between required classes in FORTRAN, Pascal, my exposure
to EMACs, and Motorolla 68008 Assembly language class, I
was quite glad to escape computerdom into the mechanical
world. |
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You got // classes in FORTRAN, Pascal, ... EMACs, and Motorolla 68008 Assembly // and yet // I was quite glad to escape // ? |
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You had all that ... and you gave it up ... ? Unbelievable. If you were stranded on a desert island and a lifeboat drifted ashore, you'd break it up to make a raft, wouldn't you ? |
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<Wanders away humming "Big Yellow Taxi"/> |
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Didn't have an EMACs class. I <strikethrough>dread</sr>
<strikethrough>hate</sr> <boldface>vehemently
despise</bf> programming. Those were just the classes
they made us lowly mechanical engineers take for some
reason. |
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yes the class was in Fortran 77. |
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I'm on record as saying that through a fortunate accident
of
history, I was a student in the first semester where CUNY
schools were offering programming classes on green
screens.
If I had to do punch cards I probably would never have
made
it as a programmer. |
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My first personal programming was done on a TRS-80. I
had a version of XEdit |
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// lowly mechanical engineers // |
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Come ... join us ... it's not too late ... don't be afraid ... you'll wonder why you ever hesitated ... we will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own ... resistance is futile ... |
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// yes the class was in Fortran 77. // |
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One if the all-time greats. |
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// If I had to do punch cards I probably would never have made it as a programmer. // |
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Even with the FORTRAN 77 credentials, we doubt you qualify as a Real programmer. |
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// My first personal programming was done on a TRS-80. // |
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Ah, the Trash Eighty. All the limitations and disadvantages of the UK 101, but for more money. |
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// Even with the FORTRAN 77 credentials, we doubt you
qualify as a Real programmer.// |
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Let's discuss after you've mastered set theory |
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It might have made more sense to pay on someone else's credt card, though. |
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