Quodlibetificate

Meaning to quibble with. Quibble, meaning to argue or raise objections to a trivial matter.

I know, I'm slowly falling out of sync with my posting pattern, but I blame my body for oscillating between feeling intensely drowsy and then incredibly alert and awake at the worst of times, thus preventing me from posting a coherent response at the normal time. But hey, it's still Monday, so I'm not late.

Now, the other day, I got particularly annoyed (I'm becoming a rather irritable person. But again, I blame stress which will hopefully soon pass). What did I get annoyed at? Well, I'm currently needing to program in Visual Basic which, as the name might suggest, is an incredibly basic programming language. So basic, in fact, that its only purpose appears to be that it is taught to students to help them get to grips with the first concepts of programming. Now, if that statement were true, I'd accept this. But it's not. Almost any other programming language is very very different. Too different. I won't go into hardcore detail, but just an example to illustrate my point a little.

Visual Basic does not require a terminus at the end of a line of code (that is, a signifier that terminates the code (usually a semi-colon)), whereas almost any other high-level programming language (i.e. C, C++, etc.) requires on at the end of every line. Surely, it makes sense to teach a language like C, which is similar and basic enough to Visual Basic for students to grasp easily (with the right teaching, that is) but similar enough to other programming languages that, when coding in C becomes second nature, most of it can be applied to another language. This would, in turn, have the effect that students would be more "malleable" and would be able to adapt to other languages far quicker. As the situation currently stands, most Universities will have to completely teach a new language from scratch because most students will not have enough experience with "true" programming.

Now, I'm sure a few of you might be complaining that, if examining boards changed from teaching Visual Basic to a marginally higher language, lots of students wouldn't understand and would find the subject too challenging. While this may be so, in our society, do we want students that can fluke their way through an exam on a basic language, or do we want students who are willing to apply themselves to a higher language and emerge from it more competent at programming? There would certainly be fewer students studying the subject, but those who did would have less problem finding a job or even a university due to the position in which they were. I think I've run out of steam on this rant though, so I hope I've illustrated my point clearly enough here.

I'm still a little annoyed about people letting me down, as I was on Friday, though. It is, in fact, my birthday on Wednesday (Woo, me). I think the most effort that somone has made is my best friend making the effort to come and see me on my birthday. I mean, that is what best friends are for, but still. It's a bit disappointing on everyone elses' part. I think the annoying thing is when people say that they'll do something and then bail. I'm not shy about having OCD, and I think it's the condition that makes it really screw with me when people make plans and then don't keep to them, because it's somewhat disordered. I like order and conformity. Nonetheless, I do accept that everyone is human and make mistakes. But it's when these "mistakes" happen again and again, and you can't help but feel that they're not so much mistakes anymore, and that "Sorry" loses meaning. Rawr. I didn't have much steam on that one either, it seems.

I hope I'll be able to post on Wednesday. I can't see why not, since I doubt I'll be doing much (passive-aggressive snipe at the world there), but I leave you with less of a philosophical quote this time, but rather a musical review that made me chuckle earlier:

". . A collection of sounds that fall somewhere between P.O.D and a fart that's been trapped in a turbo-fx pedal for ten years."