m3rajk — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 19:03:23 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by Mark Hensler
m3rajk, cool it. People get "bad marks" for many differnt reasons. There is no reason you should question his aptitude.

If Edison quit after failing to create his light bulb (after how many attempts?!), then you wouldn't have DC light bulbs. I don't know about you, but I've never seen an AC battery. So that would require that all your flashlights come with power cords.

he ogt it on the third try. the first one he double checkecked and found the filiment wasn't durable enough. once he knew WHY he failed he fixed it. the second time wasn't a complete vaccum. again, before anything else he figured out WHY he failed.

you cannot learn from something that you do wrong until you know why it went wrong. edison was more concerned with why something worked how it did than if it was a success.

to quote him "i'd rather fail the first 99 times then do everything right the first time"

this gets back to what i said, and as you and he miss, it's not an aptitude issue. i'm telling him to figure out why he failed before taking on a project inthe feild. if he doesn't know why he failed, then there's many detrimental things he may do without realizing it, as a result of ignorance. there's also other issues, everything comes back to the main point: he needs to know why he failed before he does anything in the feild.

btw: considering that i've done reports on edison, i can say with complete confidence, he WOULD agree with me. he would say mohd needs to understand why he failed

m3rajk — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 18:59:06 +0000

suzanne sees my point. before taking on a project of this size he needs tof igure out why he failed so he can learn from it. if he's having trouble grasping concepts, which is obviously the case, then he needs to find a wayt to learn the concepts because he can use them. thus he needs to understand more about himself.

Suzanne — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 00:47:32 +0000

I do think it's important to know why you failed -- if you don't learn from your mistakes, that's the real failure. But I also think the delightful part of being human is that we can overcome our past errors and achieve success if we stay committed to that task.

Mark Hensler — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 00:02:43 +0000

m3rajk, cool it. People get "bad marks" for many differnt reasons. There is no reason you should question his aptitude.

If Edison quit after failing to create his light bulb (after how many attempts?!), then you wouldn't have DC light bulbs. I don't know about you, but I've never seen an AC battery. So that would require that all your flashlights come with power cords.

m3rajk — Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:41:11 +0000

umm.. yeah. that makes so much sense.

you're acting like i'm older than i am.

you're 15. you didn't do well in a computer language course, so now you're trying to take on a database (complex computer data archetecture) and a completely different language. you're asking about datastructures.

this means you need a tutor. someoen that can give you personalized lessons. not a website.

the fact you clearly take offense at something meant to help guide you by having you get introspective so you can figure out if it's really something you should be doing isn't unexpected at your age.

you will not be happy as you get farther along in what you're trying to make. you'll be more frustrated. at your age you're in a mode where you think you can do everything, but you're not going about it in the right way to actually do everything.

you need to re-read this: you should figure out why you failed the course before you take on a project in that dciscipline.

mohd — Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:26:22 +0000

and i read the "im not tryign to attack you" statement. well dont post on my posts and i will be happy

mohd — Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:24:59 +0000

m3rajk first of all, what the HELL are you tyring to say

and umm put it this way im only 15 when i get to your age you'd be nothing!

Mark Hensler — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 00:50:00 +0000

I wish pascal would die. Delphi too.

Personally, I don't like when people explain multi-dimensional arrays as grids (or cubes) as in geometry. That analogy only works to the 3rd degree. How do you tell someone to visualize anthing beyond a 3 dimensinal array using the "grid method"? IMO, you can't (and I've seen instructors try).

I find arrays are simpler to explain using the "outline" method. Outlines generally contain bulleted titles nested to several degrees. They are ordered in such a fashion that each indented level becomes more descriptive of the data stored within. Each dimension of an array would be another indent on an outline. (PHP's print_r() function prints arrays in an outline form, if you need to visualize this)

If needed, I can explain arrays down to a memory assignment level.

m3rajk — Sun, 10 Aug 2003 22:55:34 +0000

i'm not trying to attack, just to get across that you should figure out why you failed the course before you take on a project in that dciscipline.

php is a scripting language, like perl, meaning there' s a lot of versatility. but there's also a bunch of little things. if the issue is finding the right teacher, it's better to find one offline. than on a forums

m3rajk — Sun, 10 Aug 2003 22:49:25 +0000

are you in hs or college? if college, when you fail a weeder course (which it may have been) you should forget about the subject. it means you didn't click with the professor and will problaby not click with the material either

in hs, then it's a matter of finding a competent teacher.

ir: there's a teacher that taught at my hs when i was there that everyone hated. he did it all in a way that only those that are supertalented at math... like will hunting (character from the matt damon/ben affleck movie) good at math can follow. he was the head of the math dept. when i visited ithica college in ithica ny (there's a good number that go there from my hs every year) i talked ot someoen from the math dept, he asked who my math teacher was. i told him he rolled his eyes and said he's sorry. that's how wacked the teacher is. college professors felt bad for kids in my hs that had him. those that passed his class did so by going next door to dj and saying "dj, could you explain this?" dj (pronounced deej, not d j ... even thought it's from his initials... dj) was one of those prodigies. he liked teaching so he went into it. but he has something few other teachers i have had has. he has a talent at picking up HOW each person learns within seconds, and if you want ot learn, and you make an effort to, he will do another thing that makes him unique. he actually adjust his teaching style so that wehn you go to him for help, he's teaching to your learning style. it's amazing how fast anyone picks stuff up when he teaches them.there was a group of us that would spend about 5-10 min each day with him after school (it was "block style".. 90 min classes) in those 5 to 10 min he taugh everything the other teacher did and better. and that was per person.

so if that was a hs class, find a different teacher. my experience is that those with a passion and talent are there, you have to find them. in college, you need to click with the subject as well as the professor, so if you can't find that combo, then you should take a break, and avoid any subject you don't click with