I was taught how punch cards work and that databases used direct disk access. In 1990.
In college (1995) we learned Cobol and Assembler. And Pre-Object oriented Ada (closer to early pascal than anything I can see on wiki today). C was the ‘new thing’ that was on the machines but we weren’t allowed to use.
The curriculum has always been 20 years behind reality, especially in tech. Lecturers teach what they learned, not what is current. If you want to keep up you teach yourself.
I learned how “object-oriented databases” worked in college. After 20 years of work, I still don’t know if such a thing exists at all. I read books regularly instead.
Eplan, electrical controls layout tool, used an object oriented database as its file format, It still may. I saw recently that they entered a partnership of some sort with SolidWorks, so they’re still kicking.
I’ve used one before. Maglev is a ruby runtime built atop GemStone/S, which is an object db. Gives Ruby some distributed powers, like BEAM languages (Elixir and Erlang) have.
Practically all it meant was you didn’t have to worry about serializing ruby objects to store them in your datastore, and they could be distributed across many systems. You didn’t have to use message buses and the like. It worked, but not as well as you’d hope.
Amusingly, BEAM languages, have access to tools a lot like oodbmses right out of the box. ets, dets, and mnesia loosely fit the definition of an oodb. BEAM is functional and doesn’t have objects at all, so the comparisons can be a tad strained.
Postgres also loosely satisfies the definition, with jsonb columns having first class query support.
I had to take a COBOL class in early 2000s. And one of the two C/C++ courses was 90% talking about programming and taking quizzes about data types and what do functions do, and 10% making things just beyond “hello world.” And I’m still paying the student loans.
Im currently studying Cybersecurity and I can speak positively about that. We’re taught C and Java in the programming course (java is still ew, but C is everywhere and will be everywhere). I know a course of two friends got taught Rust (I learned it at work, it’s great).
The crypto we learn is current stuff, except no EdDSA or Post Quantum stuff.
If it was something like a language theory class, that’s perfectly valid. Honestly, university should be teaching heavily about various language paradigms and less about specific languages. Learning languages is easy if you know a similar language already. And you will always have to do it. For my past jobs, I’ve had to learn Scala, C#, Go, and several domain specific or niche languages. All of them were easy to learn because my university taught my the general concepts and similar languages.
The most debatable language I ever learned in university was Prolog. For so long, I questioned if I would ever have a practical usage for that, but then I actually did, because I had to use Rego for my work (which is more similar to prolog than any other language I know).
What everyone would LIKE to learn is the exact skill that’s going to be rare and in high demand the second right after you graduate. But usually what’s rare and in high demand is also new, and there are no qualified teachers for it. Anyone who knows how to do the hot new thing is making bank doing it just like all the college grads want to do. My advice is to get out of college and then spend the next four working years learning as much as you can. You’re not going to hit the jackpot as a recent grad. You’re maybe going to get in the door as a recent grad.
I was taught how punch cards work and that databases used direct disk access. In 1990.
In college (1995) we learned Cobol and Assembler. And Pre-Object oriented Ada (closer to early pascal than anything I can see on wiki today). C was the ‘new thing’ that was on the machines but we weren’t allowed to use.
The curriculum has always been 20 years behind reality, especially in tech. Lecturers teach what they learned, not what is current. If you want to keep up you teach yourself.
I learned how “object-oriented databases” worked in college. After 20 years of work, I still don’t know if such a thing exists at all. I read books regularly instead.
Wiki says they existed, and may still do… never come across one. I thought mongodb might be one but apparently not.
Eplan, electrical controls layout tool, used an object oriented database as its file format, It still may. I saw recently that they entered a partnership of some sort with SolidWorks, so they’re still kicking.
I’ve used one before. Maglev is a ruby runtime built atop GemStone/S, which is an object db. Gives Ruby some distributed powers, like BEAM languages (Elixir and Erlang) have.
Practically all it meant was you didn’t have to worry about serializing ruby objects to store them in your datastore, and they could be distributed across many systems. You didn’t have to use message buses and the like. It worked, but not as well as you’d hope.
Amusingly, BEAM languages, have access to tools a lot like oodbmses right out of the box. ets, dets, and mnesia loosely fit the definition of an oodb. BEAM is functional and doesn’t have objects at all, so the comparisons can be a tad strained.
Postgres also loosely satisfies the definition, with jsonb columns having first class query support.
I had to take a COBOL class in early 2000s. And one of the two C/C++ courses was 90% talking about programming and taking quizzes about data types and what do functions do, and 10% making things just beyond “hello world.” And I’m still paying the student loans.
Im currently studying Cybersecurity and I can speak positively about that. We’re taught C and Java in the programming course (java is still ew, but C is everywhere and will be everywhere). I know a course of two friends got taught Rust (I learned it at work, it’s great).
The crypto we learn is current stuff, except no EdDSA or Post Quantum stuff.
A course in college had an assignment which required Ada, this was 3 years ago.
If it was something like a language theory class, that’s perfectly valid. Honestly, university should be teaching heavily about various language paradigms and less about specific languages. Learning languages is easy if you know a similar language already. And you will always have to do it. For my past jobs, I’ve had to learn Scala, C#, Go, and several domain specific or niche languages. All of them were easy to learn because my university taught my the general concepts and similar languages.
The most debatable language I ever learned in university was Prolog. For so long, I questioned if I would ever have a practical usage for that, but then I actually did, because I had to use Rego for my work (which is more similar to prolog than any other language I know).
What everyone would LIKE to learn is the exact skill that’s going to be rare and in high demand the second right after you graduate. But usually what’s rare and in high demand is also new, and there are no qualified teachers for it. Anyone who knows how to do the hot new thing is making bank doing it just like all the college grads want to do. My advice is to get out of college and then spend the next four working years learning as much as you can. You’re not going to hit the jackpot as a recent grad. You’re maybe going to get in the door as a recent grad.