₦airaland Forum

bane of our existence? nope. more like joy to me. though at the end of the day, you only really end up using a select few. I can code in java, vb, php or csharp if necessary but at the moment, all I am doing is restricted to php, javascript and some CSS hacking.

There's no point worrying about the tools. Be more worried at the quality and quantity of what you produce ,effectiveness/efficiency of your development process and your speed of adaptation.

Thats way more important.

Thatdave:
I like talking to myself while coding.
It helps me do the debugging.

Like
"If this user has upto $30 in his account.
Ask him to upgrade.
poo! ! !
Why is it not asking?"

I don't like a break in coding,
So if I have an interesting TV program
I carry my lappy to the palour!
Slower coding when am watching the telly.
Slower coding when am living in school.

No time to think abt a girl friend.
I just start thinking about her when am with her.
The rest of the time?
- its the next module I wanna add to ma script.
When am inventing a new feature in my mind
I like to get up and start walking around the whole building!
With an eureka at the end!

DaveozoalorATgmail.com
PHP.

I like walking too.

I do the talking too for debugging but sometimes i let the code do the talking. I insert echo statements everywhere and before you know it modules are screaming "User_Registration: Present Sir" all over the page.

I believe that location also currently hosts files for the Pirate Bay among other internet outlaws. many companies use them to store files that some section of the world would rather restrict or hide.

search for a pdf ebook called numerical recipes in c. IT IS THE DATASTRUCTURE BIBLE FOR C.

If all you do is join libraries together, then that might not be necessary. But even if all you do is code websites, you cant do any awesome stuff like creating a personal recommender engine or bayesian spam busting code or intelligent dynamic content caches without knowing some mathematics.

Mathematics in itself is not something to be scared of. I am not a guru myself but I would dearly love to have time to lock myself in a room for months and learnt the shit out of my engineering maths. It is so useful in real life and in coding too.

if you can think mathematically, coding becomes even easier. you can use similar concepts to quickly bootstrap your thinking e.g thinking in sets before thinking in select statements.

NOpe. might not if you take care of yourself well. The older generation didnt know the hazards of the profession hence the glasses and the RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). Nowadays we treat ourselves better. there's info available on the web for preventing that.

You have nothing to fear.

It is well.

Yes its possible.

since its a final year project, you will need to be ready to read some lil statistics or master a php library.

The idea is to:
[list]
[li]get yourself articles on bayesian text classification and fully understand what its all about.
[/li]
[li] download a PHP library Naive Bayes Classifier. search for this.
[/li]
[li]get or create an archive of text which you can classify as either general or adult. the whole point is to have something to train your application on
[/list]

you can work with that.

The key words: Naive Bayesian, text classification

I have quite a lot of friends who code and they have a range of habits.

The most extreme guy has a habit of staying on his feet till he's finished (he's actually quite awesome, life's one big hackathon for that guy).

Another guy likes lounging in a room with rock music on earphones while banging away at the keyboard.

Mine's different, my mind is one big shouting hall and I cant code if I dont quiet my mind somehow. music doesnt help unless its one track set on repeat(with time , once I am in the flow, it just becomes background noise), preferably something inspiring like Originality by Faze or the Naruto Soundtrack or Dance for me by Duncan Mighty/Sandaz Black or something else.

I like coding slowly and then increasing the tempo as things become more logical.

I like listing out a long to-do list of features/modules and then steadily hacking away at each item one at a time.

Crunchy snacks break the flow unless its pringles.

Talking helps make the coding fast too. but its not easy when friends are around (you sound crazy chatting to yourself).

I code anywhere but a room with the TV off seems the best for me.

I like having lots of reference windows open (sorry I am not an uber coder yet, I still look through the reference to code)

I like writing funny comments in code. Funny comments like:

$this->user_monitor->track_spam(); 

// catch the effing bast**d

I like writing diaries of my coding.

What are your coding habits?

poetic and firmly misguided. if that was the case, then there will be no progress ever. Its because we have unreasonable people still willing to reinvent the wheel that we have progress.

Case in point: Scala is a result of programmers refusing to code with the huge Java stacks instead prefering to write in a fast scripting language. same for ruby. Codeigniter(PHP) and CakePHP frameworks came about because some programmer refused to use huge frameworks like PEAR and ZEND and decided to "roll his own".

Dont celebrate mediocrity in the name of being sensible, they are not the same. You either have the skills and time management to do such or not.

You are effectively saying that we should not innovate, we should all live in cubicles banging out stupid code for a living. thats for programmers without a choice. thats for programmers who do not possess either the mental strictness to forgo personal pleasures like free-time until they attain their goals or the cash to float while they chase the big dream.

In a country of 140 million men and women (with upwards of 100 to 200 thousand coders), I and many others choose to stand out rather than become tiny cogs in the wheel or mediocre journeyman programmers banging out code for a living while secretly wishing we could be zuckerbergs. await our products.

enough said.

@fbaglobal Did some due diligence on you. saw your name on a list of trusted US business service providers. nice work. will get back to you.

You dont happen to have a branch in PH or ABJ do you?

My guess is that most nigerian sites are concerned with their popularity/traffic and profit. They are less concerned with the agility / performance of their platforms. No ones trying to make it faster/ better / more user focused etc.

We are all acting like technicians and not like craftsmen. We dont reallly care about our work, we are more interested in the clicks that come in.

thats why legwork would try to do all things from day one.

Nairaland is a success today because its focused on discussions not adding mods everywhere to satisfy all niche markets (yes niche).

facebook is functional and serves a purpose, google is for search, yahoo does email and you can get your naija used cars swiftly on nairalist.

In essence, these sites serve a specific purpose targeted to make your life BETTER. hence the traffic.

Your sites will forever be niche and restricted to nigeria if they have nothing to offer the world at large.

No nigerian site will ever reach the 100 million mark if it doesnt serve a useful purpose to all accidental users.


Formspring is now a million-member site because the developer, a nigerian-born coder, focused on doing something all people want (provide a way for people to ask you questions online). simple.

So lets stop whining about traffic and focus on beautiful functionality, great UIs and great internal cultures. thats what makes the big ones big.

Enough said.

NIPOO is just one big pile of ****. I detest that organisation with a passion. I believe its one organisation that can be shut down without us even missing it.

kwizzy212:
NIPOST ke. i sent my result to a school in USA since 25th of this month but till today it hasn't been delivered, i just tire for them i don't k now what to do now

same here, my transcript never arrived. i probably ended up attending a nigerian private uni because of NIPOST.

kenshin:
So how do we detect if people will be serious and committed to this?

you start something and see if anyone signs up.

^^^Another irritating political apologetic spouts off ^^^^

this country is so full of such.

God help us all.

if you have to ask this question, then you have already lost out? the answer is to be either very connected or very good. one is out of your hands, the other you can still do.

Your life is in your hands and time waits for no man.

Take charge and save yourself.

Remember we have only one life and you will never forgive yourself if you dont ignore the pain and do whats necessary to save yourself NOW.

tensor777:
These are the right kind of areas we should look at before any reasonable assessment on the quality of Nigerian graduates. It should not be about supposedly brilliant bachelor's degree holders but about actually how many PhD holders the Nigerian system, at home or abroad produces. There is more to learning than just rote memorization. Brilliant students no doubt but are they learning the right way?
However just by going on the posts on Nairaland it is pretty obvious that American high school and college students far surpass their Nigerian counterparts in original and critical thinking.

You mean the same american high school students who cant point out pakistan on a map. really. the same students that kill their classmates with uzis and pump-action guns. I beg to differ.

Sagamite:
I did not even spot the highlighted as I struggle to read all these stuuuupid textglish and hardly ever bother to read the entire post, hence my question asking him if (s)he was in university yet and at what level.

I asked because I wanted to use him as an example. Now I know he is a "graduate", I can progress.

This is a graduate that believes he can compete with those of the same level any part of the world and trying to convince people he is not a quack or half-baked but yet wrote THREE paragraphs on a very serious discussion in textspeak. That is the self-presentation he felt adequate to demonstrate his qualities?

Utter intellectual laziness! I can understand if someone writes 2 sentences in textspeak but THREE PARAGRAPHS? And you are a graduate not a pubescent/teenager?

I was soooooooo irritated I had to ask him:

He really needs to look at the way the likes of Ajanlekoko and Eluala write.

this is an informal forum, there's no need to be all hoity-toity about language. am sure a detailed audit of all your posts on this site would reveal some that fall even lower below the fold than this specific post you are referring to .

enough said.

TRUSTEDGUY:
This country has fools for leaders that's why they are clueless to sensitive issues.

present petroleum minister na once time director of this parasites call SHELL

So you would rather recruit a former banker to run your country's oil industry instead of someone with industry experience. interesting.

strangerf:
BY THE WAY GUYS; I WORK FOR SHELL



I HAVE BEEN POSTED HERE TO MONITOR YOU GUYS, AND TO EVENTUALLY TAKEOVER NL. JUST SAYING

you wish

associations in nigeria are worthless and serve no effective purpose. we are not electricians plz.

come together only to learn not for licensing or any similar ish.

You can start by meeting programmers in YOUR AREA and having regular meetings and code hackathons. let it spread from there.


in essence, first create association of programmers in edo (or whatever your own ajegunle is) and then expand from there.

if you are taught in fortran and you dont learn how to code C on your own, shame on you.

if you are not taught a jot of maths in school and refuse to master statistics, probability and calculus after leaving. shame on you.

if you never wrote one line of code in school and you refuse to do any projects because of percieved incompetence. shame on you.

if you left without a certification and still refuse to do some . shame on you.

in essence, its all in your hands.

play with html. the joy of writing something and seeing immediate results will draw you in.

deliberately build a small website with it and then learn how to use javascript to enhance it.

Now some candid advice: Stay and become a master in just those two then set your mind free to branch out in any direction. you will be amazed at what you can do.

In truth: they are almost all the same and once you learn one, you can pick up the rest. all you need is to know the differences between them.

free tuition in sweden i believe. verify. might come back online and post some for you.

logica:
It makes no sense that you cannot point out the contradictions (you probably don't know the meaning of that). And what do I have to gain by disagreeing with you? Maybe you need lessons in reading and comprehension; otherwise you wouldn't be asking me for an answer I already provided.

In any case, I'll give you a clue: the reason is the same you will not find many old accountants (even though the profession dates back several centuries), but you will find them as Accounts Managers and owners of Accounting firms.

My guess is that you are going to use this to justify your running away from a profession that has paid you back little for your effort. No one runs away from something that gives them so much joy and happiness unless they are incompetent or lazy. I am sure zuckerberg will still dive in once in a while even though he doesnt have to.

Create massive value for others by providing a solution where no other exists."

wrong time to ask. you ask before you do the exam.

Rule number 1 of effectiveness: Begin with the end in mind. why do an exam if you dont know what to do with it?

write out in simple english why you did the exam and then go after that thing that you wanted. Guru Status and recognition? skills? a Job? the certificate?

whatever, chase it now.

in essence, answer your own question.

Nchara:
This man graduated less than 20 years ago from a Nigerian university and got all those international jobs on that basis. He has no foreign academic degrees.

I am just wondering how far the youths of today's Nigeria who study there can go, given the level of bastardization of our university system.

You are what you make yourself. A country of victims cannot progress. its a victim mentality to blame everything on the system. there are nigerian youths doing well today without any issues and they have never stepped out of the country.

Nchara:
So all hope is not lost then. Means the situation is not as dire as the media paint it? Also may I ask if those Nigerian getting jobs abroad TODAY are recent graduates or those who graduated several years back and had obtained good experience in Shell, Agip, NNPC etc? Just curious. Can I graduate from UniLag today in Engineering/Pharmacy etc, and get my first job in the USA/UK, etc, not as a graduate assistant but FULL job?

I have classmates currently working in the UK already. Work out there is meritorious. If you have the skills and you have a body of evidence of completed work or achievement, you will be recruited. A programmer with 11 completed complex software projects is a gem anywhere in the world. A certified financial analyst is a hotcake anywhere in the world even with nigerian first degree.

YOu are what you make yourself.

A post filled with so many ignorant people arguing based on rumour and self-supporting inane opinions.

The FG nationalized BP in the 70s. did we lose our sovereignity for that? Venezuela (much closer to the reach of the US airforce) threatened the oil majors, got them to play ball and got away with it.

besides the people in government will only go along if it serves their purpose.

Shell has no power to deeply influence an already crooked nigeria.

Interestingly half of the people making comments have never worked in an oil major (not even as contract staff or external contractor or even industrial attache) yet they claim to know.

Reference:
Thanks Beaf for amplifying that point. If MTN comes to my home and says it wants to erect a mast, I have a right to say no. If the government forces me to give up my house the result is down the line MTN will take over the government. Simple. Corporations are important but Governments must act as a buffer. The interests of the people come first simply because government is made up of the people. So hitting people is hitting yourself. This simple equation has been lost on our government for ages. If Shell is permitted to bring arms to haunt people it is only a matter of time before they turn these weapons on the government. It is called in CIA parlance 'blow back'. The CIA trained and armed the mullahs in Afghanistan to drive out the Russians. Guess who's been tossed around today. It will always come back. Ask Odili.

If the government calls me instead and explains the need for the mast for the 'common good' the respect the government shows me is bound to rub off on MTN. Now if government returns to its base how on earth will MTN now erect two masts or build a refuse dump instead. They can't because there is now a chain of watchdogs. Just imagine the differences in response to the gulf oil spill and those that happen in Nigeria.

This country is a real gangsters paradise.

As for this comment, The Land Use Act of 1977 says you cant refuse if the government awards MTN your house unless you have a C.of O in which case they compensate you(if they remember). All Land belongs to the Federal Government of Nigeria. capisce. so your argument holds no water.

There's no line in that cable that suggests shell imported arms, it claims they suspect importation of arms. read well.

besides you all shout shell as if its a company of 5000 white men climbing all over your land. investigate and you will find out its almost wholly filled with nigerians. it is one of the most indigenised of the oil majors. enough said.

Of course it will be a scary thing if this were true but I choose to take it with a pinch of salt. that someone says he killed another person doesnt make it true unless he actually did. if that holds in a court of law why not here.