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Sep 18th, 2007
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software v web

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ok, lemme start off by saying I'm ill and tired. My face is sweating - rest of me is shivering.

But none the less it's time to apply for uni! I'm so confused, I want(ed) to do software developing as a career. I also want to move out. Everyone is yelling uni so I figure look into it. I did, every uni I looked at wanted A Level Maths (I'm doing BTEC National Dip in ICT and did AS psychology last year). So I think fark, another year at college if I start the maths this year, which I have.

But I had a brain wave, web development- doesn't need maths (working how much i do plus a BTEC + AS will kill me if this week is anything to go by), unfortunatly you need creativity to do that really, I'm not too high on that. I'm an A grade student, but always fall down at the designing part. Coding, problem solving all that? woho! With me still?

So I start looking up web developing, and end up back at software devloping and this time NONE of the uni's I look at want A Level maths (WTF? *confused*). See here:

http://courses.bournemouth.ac.uk/3de...rammeCode=BSSE

http://www.hull.ac.uk/05/undergradua...sci/index.html

http://www.uwic.ac.uk/courses/IT/Sof...evelopment.asp

(I'm not being braindead am i? they don't want maths do they? other than GCSE and I have that).

So what do you think? Web developing but suck at the design (and it's a shorter course in general) or software and go to a uni that doesn't ask for maths? I was going to go to edingbugh http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergr...ml?id=0,9,G600 'cause it's cheaper - half price infact. I feel like I'm talking to brick walls at college. Help help help

[/sick, tired, ill rant is over]
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Re: software v web

I think the web design market is saturated . The same goes for I.T.
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Computers are all i have. Literally.
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>>I'm ill and tired. My face is sweating - rest of me is shivering
Hope you get over that cold soon -- I'm just now recovering from one. It'll probably be another month before I can get a flue shot. We're pretty big on flue shots over here.

Here in USA some schools require lots of math and others don't -- depends on whether the school offers IT programs as part of the math department or business department. Myself, I spent my whole career without using more than algebra and trig. But you will probably need a lot more math if you want to work for games designers and others that make heavy use of graphics. And you will want other courses as well depending on the fields you want to work in -- for example is you want to work in medical field programming for pharmists, chemists, or doctors then you need to know a lot of medical terms. If you want to work for economists and banks then you need a to know a lot about money and banking. Just knowing how to code in a computer language is not good enough -- you need to also know about the field you are working for. Programmers don't work in a vacuum. Choose your college minor very carefully, and possibly get duel majors.
Last edited by Ancient Dragon; Sep 18th, 2007 at 5:32 pm.
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Quote originally posted by hbk619 ...
But I had a brain wave, web development- doesn't need maths
I was always under the impression that web developers were laughed at by "real" programmers. (oh and whats A level math? Calculus?)
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>> and whats A level math?
It's a qualification - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_level
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>I was always under the impression that web developers were laughed at by "real" programmers. (

and all the "cool" people laugh at me *shrugs*

I feel better for the record.

AD, the systems alittle differnt here, i think it goes foundation degree (2 years), bacholers(3 or 4 year) masters (4 or 5). The course I want to do will give me a BSc (Bacholors) in which ever field.

Today I officially dropped maths. Because I like the look of Manchets Met uni and Lincoln uni, neither of which ask for maths. It feels so good to have 2 days off a week, i spent it trying to skateboard with my mate in the rain. Brliiant. more fridays like this please. I chose sanity over education. Woot!
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Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by Sturm ...
I was always under the impression that web developers were laughed at by "real" programmers. (oh and whats A level math? Calculus?)
The typical "web developer" is a kid who knows a bit of Javascript and CSS, and goes around calling himself "programmer" and "developer". They're laughed at for they aren't.
Then there's the "web designer", typically a kid who took a 3 day course to use Frontpage and Photoshop.

There are good ones, but they generally don't care about titles (as do most professional programmers worth their salary).

I've major problems with everyone going to university to learn to become a "developer". Almost to a person they end up with heads full of theory that doesn't match real world practice one bit, and utterly unwilling to accept that fact.
They sit there in their ivory towers pumping out unworkable designs and not listening to people with a decade or more of experience in doing real work in the industry because those people don't have a degree in "computer science" or something.
They also expect to become instant project managers the moment they graduate, instead of having to earn a reputation and gain experience in the trenches like the rest of us.
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Re: software v web

I agree with Jwenting, but when I say i'd rather do an apprentiship style job, they look at me as if i've got 2 heads. Experience is waht people look for but how do you get that to start with?
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Re: software v web

You start by accepting an entry-level position, which will probably consist of boring work like maintaining existing programs. As jtwending said most college graduages with bachelors and even masters degrees don't really know programming. Yes, they may know the language(s) but that is not the same as programming. The difference between someone with a degree and someone without a degree is that the person with the degree will probably advance in his/her career faster and be offered more opportunities than the person without a degree. So the degree is not totally useless.

And whether your degree path requires lots of math or not depends on what type of programming you like to do. Graphics, scientists, medical, economists, and many other fields need programmers with quite a bit of math. General business type programs require only college algebra and maybe some trig.
Last edited by Ancient Dragon; Sep 28th, 2007 at 6:44 pm.
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