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How to look like a programmer – The origin of “Talk to your PC,” or almost …

The name “Talk to your computer” comes from my girlfriend, who saw me trying to program for a course I was doing at the time.

In the video above, it is only a command that displays all the files on your hard disk, which can take a long time!

Obviously, this is not what I was doing when I was programming, but for a user who does not know much, like my girlfriend, it would have had the same effect. She would still have said that I was “talking to my computer”, making much sense when I think about it, hence the creation of this blog!

Now here’s how to have your own “matrix” in 4 easy steps:

1. Press the Win+R , type “cmd” and press the Enter

cmd

2. You will see the Windows command prompt. Type “cd /” then Enter to go to the hard drive directory, to display as much files as possible.
cmd-window

3. Type “color 2” then Enter , for the typical green of the matrix (or old CRTs)

4. Type “tree / f” then Enter , to see all files shown in the command prompt. The “/f” merely specifies to display files, not just the sub-directories.

cmd-window-commands

5 If you want to stop, press the Ctrl+C in the command prompt! (Or close the window …)

* NOTE: I do not know where does the image at the top of the article, but it went viral!. “How users see programmers” and “How programmers see the users”

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“Computer Science”: Internet, websites, software, applications, computers, telecommunications, electronics…

Before you understand your computer, you must know what is connected to it.

When I say to those who ask me what I do and I answer that I’m in software engineering, I often hear:

In computer science?

And then, because I did not want to explain everything that took me about 5 years to distinguish, I only say that yes, the computer science is software. But it’s wrong.

When someone asks me to help him repair his computer because I studied in the domain, I can not help telling them that this is not my area … I know computers, I can fix them, but no more than anyone who is interested in computers. During my many years of studies, I had only one course, only one, troubleshooting computers.

  • I designed the plans for a microcontroller, I “wire-wrapped“, debugged and programmed.
  • I made the artificial intelligence of a game similar to chess.
  • I programmed a robot arm, controlled from a joystick and the image processing to determine the size of the tower built by this robotic arm.
  • I work on an eye-tracking project .
  • And many other similar technology projects.

But no, I am not better than someone else to repair a laptop. Sorry. For that, your brother-in-law or your little cousin would probably be more effective.

But hey, I’m not writing this article to tell how many people confuse computer science spheres that are related, but very different, to a single concept: the computer science. I write to try to help you distinguish them. To help you see where you want to go, what you what to learn (or not) to prevent you from studying “computer science”, when you really wanted to do something else.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, one must have worked or studied in the domain to understand well the difference, the proof being that I have heard of these differences formally only in the middle of my studies in software engineering. Not at first, in the middle.

At this point, it is a little late to change domain, otherwise you have to almost double the time of your studies.

Build your own satellite

Of course, I speak of studies here, but if you want to learn how your computer works, if you want to program, make web sites or micro-controllers, you do not need to go to school. It helps, especially to find jobs, but it is not necessary.

The proof is that there is absolutely no prerequisites to build your own satellite and put it into orbit. Yes, there is probably some laws, I do not know them, and I am not telling you to go try running your satellite tomorrow in your backyard. What I mean is that it is not even necessary to be an engineer to put a satellite in orbit.

To make a bridge, you have to be a civil engineer.

To make a satellite, you just have to know how to do.

3 spheres of computer science

  1. Hardware: The physical computer
  2. Software: The operating system (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) and programs
  3. Internet and Telecommunications (“Cloud”): between two physical computers via software and hardware (cable or wireless)

Also note the embedded software (“Firmware”), which is the connection between hardware and software.

The computer is the hardware of a computer, the associated operating system, basic applications, and communication to other computers, as appropriate …

So the computer science is all of this, but only some parts …

I may have not helped you better understand for now, but we have to start somewhere … More details soon.