its beens more than 10 years and this group is still here. i am thinking of turning ti into a curator group. if you have any reviews for games, just send them to me.

Just saying hi

Ok, i have enough members to call this a group, so I am going to select a few moderators. IF you want to give up your spot or if you really want it, then just say so in the comments or message me.

In my course studies, I have learned that theory and practice need to be in your mind as you learn computer science. There are long term goals that set in stone your career options and short term options for quick payoff.

Think of the top three markets for computer science: content management systems (web design for you layfolk), operating systems, and game design.

Game design is popular because it has a high short term payoff for first time dev teams, but the reality is that game dev teams have steep barrier to entry from competition (think of all the games out there already!). Is it really worth realing a game when another like it is already doing well?

Web sites are always in demand, and web dev make alot of money and enjoy relative independance. This path actually has higher and steady payoff compared to game design because games are luxery, web site are essential. There is a sort of oligopoly system going on here too (remember economics class), but anyone who knows some CSS, javascript, and html will be valuable today and tomarrow.

Operating Systems is the bread and butter of computer science. Computer engineering designs the computer, and computer science makes it work with operating systems. However, this is the most challenging route to take. for one there is a monopoly going on here. How many OS can you name? Windows, Linux, Mac OSx, FreeBSD, and that is it. This is an oligopoly in true sence of microecomics, a high barrier for the kid who coded a simple OS for an old PC. Second, OS code is complex and huge. Minimum OS for PC is about 7 million lines of code, which dwarfs many Game or Web source codes. Like the Rabbits in Watership Down, when Frith declared that all the animals will hunt the rabbits to death, changed mind to show mercy,

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed." (Quote is actually from Movie version, which I am one of the few that will say was pretty good for one of the worst film renditions of a classic book; it was made by the same director of "The Plague Dogs" which was a good movie I think).

Well I threw that in to say that Operating Systems engineers are like Rabbits that are always being hunted or killed in nature (which always brings up the Richard Adams classic), deciding to go into operating systems is one of the toughest businesses available for Computer Science, cut throught even. However, like rabbits and their fertility cult surrounding them, they thrive as they survive.

just doing some studies on databases, and want to post some random info on normalizing databases (if you do not know anything I am saying, just google "relational databases")

if data attributes in your table, like {name, city, street, zipcode} are not just informational, but actually determine or define the table, then they must not rely on the existance of other keys. zipcode relies on city for example (or is functionally dependant on it).

The solution is simply create other tables through decomposition
{name, cityID}
{cityID, city}
{street, cityID}
{zipcode, cityID}

another example is that normalization prevents errors from occuring on insert.

think on a three topping pizza

cheese
meat
vegi

pizza topping type
1 mozzerella cheese
1 sausage meat
1 pepperoni vegi
2 jack cheese
2 bell pepper meat
2 mushrooms vegi

you can see the error

thus a solution is to make 2 tables

topping type
mozz c
saus m
pepperoni m
bell v
mush v
etc....

pizza topping
1 mozz
1 saus
1 pepp
2 bell
2 mush
2 mozz

the error occured because topping type is not just informational, but they are directly related.

Therefore, think about separating directly related attributes into different tables.

that is it for this info tid bit.