brianto2010

Grades (I think) are only an approximation of your knowledge. Take them with a grain of salt, unless things like financial aid or enrollment hang in the balance. I've gotten F's on a few exams before, but I've also gotten two fantastic internships. Grades won't reflect that.

What kind of things did your professor dock points for? Simple mistakes? Or are they conceptual mistakes? Do you feel that the exam material is relatively important? And did you learn?

I (personally) wouldn't worry about what to feel, but instead took towards a goal (like working at Google!).

I think the the interviewer (or company) would probably take this as an insult.

But I do agree with you in that these types of interview questions are pointless. Spitting back an answer verbatim demonstrates nothing.

A neat approach that I've seen people use is to take a you-should-know-this concept such as the merging part of merge sort and put a twist in it, so it isn't a simple spit-the-answer-back, but different enough to require some thought.

http://www.lua.org/pil/4.2.html

Yes, I agree. The grandparent does point out a valid problem. However I believe the parent was referring to the sarcastic tone and negativity, which I also believe should be out of place here on Hacker News.

Is this the same in industry? I've heard a professor say that SAS is more widely used.

I wonder, do statisticians actually use graphing calculators to do stats?

What I was proposing in my earlier post was exactly as you say: explain the downvote.

Maybe let everyone downvote, but have tiny radio buttons with reasons next to them. :-)

I also disagree with the idea of karma-driven downvote system. However, I wrote the above with the assumption that those who can downvote know HN values and enforce them. As you pointed out, yes the karma-downvote thing doesn't quite accomplish it's goal (assuming the goal is to allow senior members to act as enforcers). It should change. However that wasn't quite the point of my post.

My original point is: if you gonna say smack, gimme a damn good reason why.

I do have a concern, though. If this system is implemented, doesn't that mean that the "new kids" will also have access to this system and may use it to exasperate HN's "new kids" problem?

What about modifying the existing HN guidelines to include comments and promote the guidelines more? For example, cite a downvote with an appropriate quote from the guidelines.

Whenever I use LaTeX, it's usually for math/physics/stat homework where either computation or graphs are involved. It would be lovely if I could somehow inject (for example)

    <<echo=FALSE,fig=TRUE>>=
    x <- -5:5
    y <- (x - 2)^2 - 5

    plot(x, y)
    @

Yes, yes I would.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architect_(disambiguation)

- third bullet down

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_(disambiguation)

- look under 'Process Architecture'

Personally, I don't usually see people favoring the word "engineer" over programmer or software developer. As for myself, I see them as synonyms.

YMMV.

A lot of companies see RIT as a huge talent pool, and dedicate quite a bit of recruiting resources to look for potential interns and full-timers. Plus, you'll find peers that you can use to develop your professional network.

    nnoremap <Tab> gt
    nnoremap <S-Tab> gT

  * _Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby[1]
  * The Tao of Programming[2]

[2]: http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html

Why's guide has enough non-text/geeky humor to keep me reading. And, it's mostly pictures! You're learning, but it doesn't 'feel' like you're learning.

The Tao of Programming flows differently than other books, which blast you with information. Instead of telling you stuff directly, it is anecdotal. Rather than didactic, it's like a parable.

> "It would be of far more educational value to the group that was studied and all their peers."

How is that so?

Don't sites usually have regular URL structures. Or, at least, could be organized into regular structures? In Rails, we have routes that map to URLs, like

  <website>/clothing/shirts/
  <website>/electronics/cellphones/verison
  <website>/<department>/<item_type>/<brand>