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Old 07-09-2004, 06:20 PM   #1 (permalink)
Insane
 
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EE vs CS (might only be funny to EE's or other engineers)

I laughed for a good 15 minutes at this.

Electrical Engineering vs. Computer Science

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."

"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard- boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes."

"The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs."

"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too."

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook."

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller!)."

The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after.
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Old 07-09-2004, 07:36 PM   #2 (permalink)
wouldn't mind being a ninja.
 
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Location: Maine, the Other White State.
heh.

<< mechanical engineer.

oh, the laughs are just starting to kick in...
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Old 07-09-2004, 11:50 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Location: I am not living.
It is so funny because it is true. hahahaha

<< computer programmer
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Old 07-10-2004, 05:04 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Location: Right behind you...
They didn't even talk about exception handling! What if the user attempts to insert juice into the toaster? We need to be prepared for user-induced errors.

<--- Programmer
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Old 07-10-2004, 10:01 AM   #5 (permalink)
GM2
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heh, yeah only engineers are gonna like that one.

<--- Civil Engineer
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Old 07-10-2004, 06:41 PM   #6 (permalink)
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heeheh

<---EE
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Old 07-10-2004, 08:55 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Location: Louisville, KY
Whahaha... I guess I'm just out of luck, eh?

<--- Computer Scientist

Very funny, and very true
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Old 07-11-2004, 12:44 AM   #8 (permalink)
It wasnt me
 
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Location: Scotland
So true, so true... I see examples of overcomplication very often - projects that never end.

<--- software eng
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Old 07-11-2004, 11:22 AM   #9 (permalink)
Done freeloading here
 
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Location: on my ass :) - Norway
Very true!

Software eng and educated in electronics...didn't know if I should laugh or cry.
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Old 07-13-2004, 08:26 AM   #10 (permalink)
We can't stop here! This is bat country!
 
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Location: SL,UT
haha
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Old 07-13-2004, 08:33 AM   #11 (permalink)
Right Now
 
Location: Home
They should have started at the quantum level.

<----- Physicist
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Old 07-15-2004, 01:41 PM   #12 (permalink)
Upright
 
haha

<--- PE teacher
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Old 07-15-2004, 08:57 PM   #13 (permalink)
!?!No hay pantalones!?!
 
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Location: Indian-no-place
Wow...

I mean, WOW...

<--- Was EE, now a Hospitality Manager.

Coding frightens me.
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Old 07-15-2004, 09:08 PM   #14 (permalink)
Psycho
 
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Location: The Amish Wastelands of Ohio
a bit of both worlds here, studying EE and CS both... funny as hell
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Old 07-15-2004, 10:31 PM   #15 (permalink)
Upright
 
<-- CS
See, the thing is, the more complicated I do something, the more I get paid!
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Old 07-16-2004, 09:03 AM   #16 (permalink)
Thats MR. Muffin Face now
 
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Location: Everywhere work sends me
damn that thing is going to generate calls

<--- Technical Support
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Old 07-17-2004, 05:35 AM   #17 (permalink)
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There are two methods of constructing a design. The first is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. The second is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

The first method is far more difficult.
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Old 07-17-2004, 05:12 PM   #18 (permalink)
Banned
 
That was boring.

<-----Personal Trainer
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Old 07-18-2004, 12:03 AM   #19 (permalink)
Insane
 
I don't get it. Maybe its because I haven't taken any engineering classes yet.

<-----1/2 EE + 1/2 CS major.
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Old 07-22-2004, 04:34 AM   #20 (permalink)
Egocentric
 
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Location: World of Warcraft
Funny stuff!

<--- CS

--jaded
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Old 07-22-2004, 04:58 AM   #21 (permalink)
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Location: Dublin, Ireland
I don't get it

<---- DF (dumb fuck)
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Old 07-22-2004, 09:02 AM   #22 (permalink)
Here to Help My Fellow TFP'er
 
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Location: All over the Net....(ok Wisconsin)
Funny and believeable <-----------Mechanical Engineer
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Yippie Ki Ya...
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Old 07-22-2004, 09:39 AM   #23 (permalink)
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Location: NJ
Would have been funnier if an economist was thrown into the mix

<-----------Former ME student who switched to Economics after 2 years
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Old 07-23-2004, 04:40 PM   #24 (permalink)
Jarhead
 
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Location: Colorado
They should both be beaten to death with wooden planks for over complicating a fucking toaster!
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Old 11-01-2004, 10:46 PM   #25 (permalink)
Junkie
 
haha

<--- Artist
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Old 11-02-2004, 12:26 AM   #26 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Singapore
That was too funny.
That's why I hated programming. heh

<--------- Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate
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Old 11-02-2004, 12:57 AM   #27 (permalink)
Psycho
 
Location: Where hockey pucks run rampant
BWUAHAHAHA!


<------Civil evgineer undergrad


Though, I would have solved everything by just roasting it all over a fire, but maybe that's just me.
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Old 11-02-2004, 03:56 AM   #28 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: Sydney, Australia
Very nice, I should send this to an electrical buddy of mine.

<------- Civil Engineering / Science undergrad
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Old 11-02-2004, 05:26 AM   #29 (permalink)
Tilted
 
When can we expect the first patch? TOAST IS HORRIBLY IMBA AND NEEDS TO BE NERFED!!!

<------ Game Designer
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