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Thread: Self Doubt . . .

  1. #1
    Code Monkey NightrainSrt4's Avatar
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    Default Self Doubt . . .

    I'm tired of it.

    For our "big" project in our Software Engineering degree we have to write essentially a virtual machine for a hypothetical computer, which we can then write a multithreaded operating system that we can deploy on the machine.

    I've finished the vm for the computer. We then have to do testing by running machine code programs the professor has written on it (among our own as well). It freaks out and goes into an infinite loop. I spent five hours going through my code checking each line, debugging, etc. I finally give up, grab a whiteboard marker, and go at it on my sliding glass door all Charlie Eppes from Numb3rs style. I then can see right there the professor was the issue, not my code. He addresses the wrong memory location several times. Change his machine code to point to the right memory location, and boom! Works like a charm.

    I have to stop doubting my abilities. Anyone else doubt themselves to the point sometimes where it has to be you the one wrong, and don't even consider the other parties involved?

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    yes, but i've learned it's usually not me.

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    Will YOU be ready when the zombies rise? x88x's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    Yup. Especially when I'm working with expensive equipment. I've learned to trust my instincts though, because while they're not right all the time, more often than not, they are.

    I had a similar situation to yours in a freshman CS course I took several years ago. The second portion of the final was a programming test, actually on computers, which was nice. We were supposed to take some code that the professor provided and expand it to do certain things. ...I was one of the first ones out and it took me about an hour...about 45-50 minutes of which was fixing the professors code..

    In all honesty though, it's a good test for doing software development in the real world. Yes, you can go over your code line-by-line to verify that your stuff is working, but sometimes it goes a lot faster if you remove the assumption that the stuff you didn't write is working properly. I've had more than a few cases at my current job where that's happened. The first couple times I wasted days pouring over the code I was maintaining, before finally thinking to look at the data (or rather, lack of data) that I was actually receiving. To quote Jayne Cobb: "Nothin..into nothin. Carry the nothin.."
    That we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
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    AARGH dr.walrus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    I wrote some perfectly logical SQL today that managed to bring the test environment down because MySQL is a pile of bear ****, and even a simple nested subquery fell over with a medium sized data set (14000 records).

    After trying half a dozens methods, still sat at 2s PER RECORD QUERIED in a TWO TABLE QUERY, I broke it down into six queries/statements that created temporary tables and recycled them afterwards. Takes 5 seconds to do the whole lot now, twice.

    Sometimes you gotta take a step back, have a break for ten minutes, and logically step through the potential pitfalls one by one - with NO assumptions.

    Forunately I only work in high level languages, sat miles away from the 'machine', so the range of debug tools I have is endless - yours are limited at best!

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    Code Monkey NightrainSrt4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    I'm writing it in C#, so a high level language, but the code is emulating a machine based on the specifications we are given; so it has memory, registers, pc, etc, etc.

    So if there was something syntactically wrong C# would catch it. But as for actually debugging the machine I've written - ya, I've got nothing. Anything I want to use I would have to write.

    I thought there might have been something wrong with the way I was addressing the memory or registers, or even my address mode code, but I could find nothing. Once I stepped back (after 5 hours of writing debug output and scouring code) and wrote out a visual on the "whiteboard" and stepped through the machine code I realized he was just accessing the wrong memory location.

    A duh! moment now, but it hadn't even occurred to me the professor's machine code was wrong. Should have been the first thing I checked as he's made big mistakes before, but I wasn't confident in my code as it was my first time attempting to emulate a machine.

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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    I know that place you're talking about, Nightrain; been there a few times myself. Back in my undergrad, I had a professor who gave us an assignment in assembly language for an ARM8 processor; relatively simple stuff like building a recursion loop. My friends & I drove ourselves crazy trying to make our code function as intended, only to be told at the next class meeting that he had told us the wrong set of registers to use on the processor for the assignment; hence, the perpetual garbage we were getting. When we used the proper registers, it worked perfectly.
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  7. #7
    The floppy drive is no longer obsolete. AmEv's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    My worst experience programming?
    During Game Maker.


    For some odd reason, I bumped the Shift key at the beginning of a variable, not sure which one.It would launch the game, route directly to the high score table, and when I tried exiting, it would just route right back.

    Took me about a quarter of an hour, but hey, I learned something.
    Two years. They were great. Let's make the next ones even better!

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  8. #8
    Code Monkey NightrainSrt4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    So we hand the project in by three big sections: the vm for the machine, the os, and I think the last section is the upper application layers.

    Turned in the VM last night. Me and a whole two other people, out of a class total of ~16. A lot of the other guys have no clue what is going on. This is the way its gone through every programming class. The problem being they will hand it in weeks late, after copying code from other people, and still get the same grade. I've watched them do it since freshman year. I guess they just call it "collaborating".

    We're given a pretty strong specification and even some pseudocode for the main outline/structure and people are still complaining. One guy I overheard was complaining that the professors pseudocode looked too much like C so he couldn't figure out how to write it in java.

    It's entirely obvious to me I am, and have been, way out ahead of the pack and yet I still seem to keep finding myself in situations I'm doubting myself. When will I learn? Lol.

  9. #9
    Will YOU be ready when the zombies rise? x88x's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4 View Post
    One guy I overheard was complaining that the professors pseudocode looked too much like C so he couldn't figure out how to write it in java.
    lol...and it's a C# course?
    That we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
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  10. #10
    Code Monkey NightrainSrt4's Avatar
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    Default Re: Self Doubt . . .

    No, it's an OS Internals course. I just chose C# as the language I wanted to use to implement with. The school is currently teaching its courses primarily in java. The language shouldn't matter anyway, it's just a matter of small differences in syntax and libraries for the most part.

    But these are the same people that when we had a quiz in another class today busted out their laptops when the teacher left the room and looked up the answers. Also the same people that act like know-it-alls. Easy to do that when you've got google running on your iphone under the desk. So much for integrity, but whatever, I've grown to hate people. Makes it hard to make close friends when I don't agree with so much of what most people do.

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