Back To School :)

K

Kaos

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2003
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Im going back to school shortly (for CS)...being a hardware and network type, Ive been stagnent on new things to learn lately and the development process has been kinda fun to learn from coworkers and from some of the resources I've been using.

I already have a degree in networking, so Im not going to school for the degree, Im going to learn and ask questions and maybe have some fun along the way.

I have a spare machine around that I intend to use for class

its a 2.6ghz Celeron with 1gb of Ram

Is that good enough for a basic development machine? I don't know much about coding at all, so I doubt ill be writing anything too taxing on it. I do plan however on using dual monitors or a somewhat mid range lcd tv as a monitor....does this sound ok as a development machine?

That computer was running debian previously hosting my website and mysql..apache sorts of things, but its the only desktop machine I have left to use and would hope to avoid buying a new machine.

The language theyre teaching doesnt matter much to me as I should be able to take the concepts to any language but I think it's Java and C++ (or C#) but thats probably what Ill be coding on that machine...most likely VisualStudio, but Im unsure of what the instructor will be using so I can't say for certain.

Ive got a few months before school starts and would love to start learning ahead of time, but id learn the right way instead of going in thinking I know more than I do.

So...is that machine OK...and is there anything I should prep myself with before starting this fun trip?
 
Kaos said:
Is that good enough for a basic development machine? I don't know much about coding at all, so I doubt ill be writing anything too taxing on it. I do plan however on using dual monitors or a somewhat mid range lcd tv as a monitor....does this sound ok as a development machine?
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For your use, I'm sure it'll be fine.
 
Thanks for the reply Mike, it's quite appreciated.

Currently I am reading

C# In easy steps and doing the learnvisualstudio.net c# videos from the c# page over at Microsoft. Do you think this is a good way to get familiar before classes start, or should I spend the time on theory or what?

Thanks for any response given,

K.
 
That's plenty of machine for any reasonable development a student would do - hell, I'm sure a lot of working programmers are running less (I've only got a 2.4GHz Celery w/ 512MB but I only really use it to SSH to the dev server).

You mention running VStudio/Windows - you might look into what the preferred OS of the department is. If it's a Linux-oriented department, like many CS programs, you'll probably have an easier time if you run Linux yourself.
 
Im already comfortable with linux (a year or so experience) so thats fine. The machine is already dual boot with debian and windows xp professional
 
Wingy said:
I wouldn't call it that,
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Me, either! Rape involves the complete loss of control, and someone else making you a victim for the duration of that loss of control. Hard work involves controlling your own destiny and building your own future. It's the opposite of being a victim!
 
It's going to be fine for developing, but you're going to have a few times were you're like go faster you #%@*(@, i'd recommend 2 gigs of ram for development.
 
that's plenty of machine for what you need to do. People were writing huge, enterprise-level C++ and Java apps on 400Mhz P2's with at most 256MB of RAM only a few short years ago, i really doubt the system requirements for compliers have changed that much in a few short years.
 
The requirements for the ide's have grown though, and if you like to have all of your development tools open at once for what you are working on that can easily chew through ram. I usually have my IDE open, a web development program, sql editor and tools, web browser, couple command lines, a few folders, logging application to recieve logs from all apps in production, outlook, messenger, winamp and then sometimes special editors for specific things, a few remote desktop connections.

Granted for school you'll use half of them but as i was getting done with my degree just last year the amount of programs increased alot
 
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