Computer Science Vs. Software Engineering?
As far as I''m concerned, take all of them or don''t even go to school. You will never have enough experience when you get out of school anyway and will have to start a lot of it all over.
quote:Original post by smanchesIs this bitterness from personal experiance?
As far as I''m concerned, take all of them or don''t even go to school. You will never have enough experience when you get out of school anyway and will have to start a lot of it all over.
During school, build yourself a portifolio. Companies say they are looking for something specific, but they will comprimise on certain aspects if the tradeoffs are acceptable or beneficial. Don''t go into a company and tell them you haven''t released 2 titles to meet their requirements for the job. Show them your portfolio and show that you are self motivated, skilled, and somewhat experianced in the field you are applying for. Self motivation is highly rewarded.
Kind of. I'm self taught and hate school. School always held me back when it came to learning something because I learn so fast. Although I do have to admit that I had a few little holes in my knowledge.
It really depends on what exactly you want to do when you graduate. If it's games, take CS. If its IT, take the IT route (obviously). If your want to go into enterprise appications, I would say go the SE route.
This is just from my experience working in the different fields. I've worked in all three.
And yes, employers, especially the game industry, want to see examples of what you can do. Make as many applications as you can for the field you want to get into. It doesn't matter how small they are, just write them.
[edited by - smanches on September 1, 2002 9:53:30 AM]
It really depends on what exactly you want to do when you graduate. If it's games, take CS. If its IT, take the IT route (obviously). If your want to go into enterprise appications, I would say go the SE route.
This is just from my experience working in the different fields. I've worked in all three.
And yes, employers, especially the game industry, want to see examples of what you can do. Make as many applications as you can for the field you want to get into. It doesn't matter how small they are, just write them.
[edited by - smanches on September 1, 2002 9:53:30 AM]
Hopefully you will find your school experience more enjoyable than smanches. The goal of school is to teach you to think critically, and learn to learn. Once you stop learning and think you are the best, someone better WILL beat you out. And you''ll become a grumpy 40 year old 9to5er who''s only contribution is testing the thermal load on the company''s air conditioning unit.
I used to work with people who at one time used to be good programmers (back in the 70''s maybe), but they lost interest in learning, and now they are pretty much useless. They know C, and by golly that''s what everybody at the company better use. ("''Cause that''s the way it was and we liked it!" - SNL)
Even if you think you are a better programmer than your teacher, they will push you in directions you wouldn''t normally push yourself, and you''ll be better off for it.
I used to work with people who at one time used to be good programmers (back in the 70''s maybe), but they lost interest in learning, and now they are pretty much useless. They know C, and by golly that''s what everybody at the company better use. ("''Cause that''s the way it was and we liked it!" - SNL)
Even if you think you are a better programmer than your teacher, they will push you in directions you wouldn''t normally push yourself, and you''ll be better off for it.
Computer Science is the study of computer hardware and software from a theoretical perspective. Scientists try to find out why things are the way they are; they produce detailed studies comparing one method to another; they invent and research new methods.
Software Engineering is the professional construction of software. An engineer knows how to build things that work; he studies the various methods used to build things, so that he might use the proper solution for each problem; he uses the research of the Scientist in order to construct great and wonderful things.
If you want to work professionally as a programmer, study Software Engineering. If you want to stay in academia, or join a research department, study Computer Science.
Game programmers usually wind up doing quite a bit of research in order to do their jobs. You aren''t just churning out old designs, but you don''t sit around contemplating your navel, either. However, due to the relative youth of Software Engineering, any SE degree will most likely include a considerable amount of CS as well.
Personally, I find CS programs to be too academic; programming games means working, not researching or trying numerous different approaches. John Carmack might write eight different rendering engines on the way to his next title, but the rest of us have deadlines.
Finally, I think companies are looking for engineers, not scientists. If you expect to be hired to do research when fresh out of school, you need to put down the crack pipe. College feeds you toy problems. Modern games have 300,000 lines of code or more. With a handful of programmers, that can mean 50,000 lines of code per programmer per year. Those 500-line programming assignments given in school are a joke. The contribution to a 5,000 line senior project that each of four team members make represents one week of work to me. On a good day, I''ll write and debug over a thousand lines of code.
So keep that in mind. The great researchers in the computer game field got there because they wrote and shipped several large, complex titles--not because they got a degree in the right field.
-Anduril
Software Engineering is the professional construction of software. An engineer knows how to build things that work; he studies the various methods used to build things, so that he might use the proper solution for each problem; he uses the research of the Scientist in order to construct great and wonderful things.
If you want to work professionally as a programmer, study Software Engineering. If you want to stay in academia, or join a research department, study Computer Science.
Game programmers usually wind up doing quite a bit of research in order to do their jobs. You aren''t just churning out old designs, but you don''t sit around contemplating your navel, either. However, due to the relative youth of Software Engineering, any SE degree will most likely include a considerable amount of CS as well.
Personally, I find CS programs to be too academic; programming games means working, not researching or trying numerous different approaches. John Carmack might write eight different rendering engines on the way to his next title, but the rest of us have deadlines.
Finally, I think companies are looking for engineers, not scientists. If you expect to be hired to do research when fresh out of school, you need to put down the crack pipe. College feeds you toy problems. Modern games have 300,000 lines of code or more. With a handful of programmers, that can mean 50,000 lines of code per programmer per year. Those 500-line programming assignments given in school are a joke. The contribution to a 5,000 line senior project that each of four team members make represents one week of work to me. On a good day, I''ll write and debug over a thousand lines of code.
So keep that in mind. The great researchers in the computer game field got there because they wrote and shipped several large, complex titles--not because they got a degree in the right field.
-Anduril
I''ve just started the Software Engineering program. In Canada, Software Engineering is a "real" engineering program just like Electrical or Mechanical Engineering. You have to take all the other general engineering courses to get that degree (Maths, physics, chemestry). In SE, you''ll be trained to become a project leader. You''ll have to deal with all the steps of Software Engineering to build software. In CS, you mostly only deal with the programming part. But there are many other steps like planning, testing, implementing, etc. You are not restricted to programming. At my school in SE, we get to work on all kinds of different projects and some of them include graphics programming.
how does the process work. does it go from undergraduate >>> bachelors degree >>> or what - i could never work it out and i better start thingking about it because i will be starting university soon. I want to go to durham www.dur.ac.uk still don''t that the question has been answered . . . and like what post graduate + under graduate?
http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/
http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/prospectus/
http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/
http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/prospectus/
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