• banazir@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    85
    ·
    edit-2
    19 days ago

    Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes

    Edsger W. Dijkstra

  • Python@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    68
    ·
    19 days ago

    Pro tip: whenever a relative asks you to fix their computer, wipe everything and set up Linux for them. That’ll teach em.

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        19 days ago

        “Make sure to write that down, because you’re legally required to bring it up at every possible opportunity.”

        • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          19 days ago

          I haven’t used Windows personally in about 15 years and professionally in about 10. I’m pretty useless on anything newer than XP. I even got my wife to switch over to a Mac Mini because at least that has a Unix-like OS and she can still do her audio work on it (in fact, better than a Windows system because their patch QA is light-years ahead of the MS “fuck it, it’ll break some systems but we’ll get that next patch Tuesday” approach).

          That’s not to say that I like Apple. I just dislike their OS less than Windows.

          • abcd@feddit.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            19 days ago

            You have experienced the pinnacle of Windows (we could probably also add Windows 7 to this). Do yourself a favor and never touch a Windows 10 and especially Windows 11 machine. It’s unimaginable how Microsoft managed to break everything that was working and how clever they are in terms of marketing to sell you stuff you don’t need.

            They made me finally switch to Linux because my paid 365 subscription offered me to try the new outlook because Windows Mail was to be discontinued in future. I activated the test and the fun began: Only one of seven accounts was imported into outlook. Of course it was the only Microsoft account (Outlook). All other Accounts were ignored. I thought „Ok migration didn’t work, I’ll do it later manually“ I had a new email. I clicked on it. Edge opened although Firefox was my standard browser. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was clickbaited into opening an advertisement by one of the biggest companies on this planet.

            This made me immediately stop my work and install Linux Mint. I’m not going back any time soon.

            For job related reasons I have to use a lot of VMs. Unfortunately most of them are Windows 10. I created a naked installation years ago and basically use this as the base for individual development VMs. One of these annoyed me for days to make an update. All I could click was „remind me in one hour“ or update immediately. So I chose the one hour a lot of times. I finally let it update. Now my (Windows default!) task bar is transparent and also the whole windows menu. A colleague using the same VM with the latest updates (without changes to installed software) has no issues.

    • ZeroHora@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      19 days ago

      Did that for my sister but nowadays I just use the excuse: “Sorry I can’t help you, I don’t use Windows anymore”.

      The real problem is when a relative know that I’m computer guy and ask me to fix the TV/air conditioner or like my father once did: setup an antenna

    • Asetru@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      19 days ago

      Did that, kind of. The system’s been running flawlessly for like a decade now. I’m not sure if they even understand the difference.

  • DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    19 days ago

    Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.

    Most programmers I’ve known would be garbage at support and most support staff might be able to do some scripting but sure as hell aren’t coders.

    • MBM@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      17 days ago

      Computer science has absolutely nothing to do with support, they are totally different fields with totally different skill sets.

      That also holds for computer science and programming :)

  • palmtrees2308@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    18 days ago

    People need to understand the difference between computer science, information technology, software engineering and Tech Support

    • superkret@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      18 days ago

      and “actually needing Microsoft support but coming to you cause Microsoft doesn’t give a shit about private end users”

      • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        17 days ago

        Computer sciences is mathematics, software engineering is programming, IT support (I’m including infrastructure and infosec here) is making sure that computers run fine for the employees needs.

        • figjam@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          17 days ago

          Don’t let the infosec people hear that you lump them into support. At one of my past organizations they outright refused their workshops to be integrated with the company wide ticketing system. He can use it but not infosec.

      • gt5@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        17 days ago

        Generally, but I am likely missing some stuff:

        Computer Science: The underlying theory around making efficient computer software (I would consider the hardware side computer engineering)

        Information Technology: the process of managing computer software and hardware systems for an organization

        Software Engineering: the process of developing software including writing code, prioritizing features / bug fixes

        Tech Support: part of IT. Troubleshooting and resolving issues with an organizations hardware and software systems

  • kibiz0r@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    19 days ago

    My answer is usually “I don’t use computers the same way you do, so I probably won’t know what you’re talking about.”

  • lseif@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    18 days ago

    understanding how a cpu works and how to write efficient programs is the easy part.

    understanding why windows does [anything] is the hard part.

    • superkret@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      18 days ago

      Yeah, just read that their newest server OS puts a recovery partition to the right of the primary partition by default.
      Which is completely useless on a server, and prevents you from growing the partition when you run out of space.

      At this point, they’re basically saying “Office and AD guarantee our monopoly, so we can push out literal monkey shit, and tell admins to deal with it.”

  • socsa@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    19 days ago

    “Right, so you see, when a conductor is passed through a magnetic field, an electromotive force is produced, and this force can perform work, which can in turn be used to represent probabilistic information…”

    • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      18 days ago

      Stare at their computer blankly
      “Wait, they got rid of the green hill???”

    • pedz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      17 days ago

      I do that too but only because it’s much easier to help my relatives with Linux than those with Windows.

      I even “convert” some people because Llinux is easier for them if I just manage it. I had a neighbor that was using Window on a very old computer, it was slow and choking under the weight of simple updates. Plus, she was always asking me why her computer kept rebooting by itself while it was obviously Windows update. So I installed Mint and all the problems went away.

      Anyway I don’t want to have to deal with Microsoft accounts, licenses, office365, the general bloat, the ads, the new versions of Windows… I have enough at work, so if I am going to help on my free time, it has to be on the OS I find easier to deal with.

  • Sergio@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    19 days ago

    Relative: You know about computers, right?

    Me: I’m not sure. Who knows about computers, really? In the words of W.S. McCulloch, “What is a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he may know a number?” (if you’ll pardon the gendered language) Now if you extend this to computation…

    Relative: All right, STFU, I just wanted to know how to update my Amazon account…

    • anton
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      18 days ago

      What is a number, that a man may know it?

      Lets start with natural numbers and define the integers, rational, real and complex numbers as solutions to certain equations.

      and a man, that he may know a number?

      Now you asked for to much.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    19 days ago

    no uncle steve, that’s commuter science, I know ALL ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    19 days ago

    Especially this time of year when people are panicking for whatever reason, people are travelling, people are coming and going, people are buying laptops, devices and phones and the majority of them don’t know how digital files or folders even work (or where they are in a digital system).

    If you know anything about computers … just pretend you don’t know anything like everyone else. It will save you so much work and headaches this time of year.

    And don’t get soft either … cute girl asking for help? NO … old grandma has a new laptop? NO … your dying relative has a new phone? NO! … your two year old niece has a new tablet? NO! … your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      18 days ago

      your drug dealer wants to lower your debt in exchange for fixing their PC? HELL NO!!!

      nuh uh, if i’m getting paid (getting paid in reduced debt is still paid cuz it’s money i was gonna give him anyway) i’ll do whatever

  • ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    18 days ago

    No, sorry, I don’t know what kind of ass-backwards somersault your windows machine did this time. Your word doc is randomly missing every third paragraph? Too right mate.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    18 days ago

    What they say: “You know about computers, right?”
    What they mean: “Can you fix this bug in Microsoft’s software?”

  • Kevin@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    18 days ago

    Alright I’m probably the outlier here but… I like helping people with their IT needs, and I’ve always found the problem solving and praise kinda nice. Maybe it’s just a me thing tho

    • mynamewastakenagain@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      18 days ago

      imo - you are not the outlier, you just haven’t yet progressed to the mostly inevitable stage where people take advantage of your help, or their spyware ridden dumpster fire of a laptop breaks and they blame you because you “touched it last” - never mind that was 6 months ago and the only thing you did was change the screensaver timeout.

    • usernamefactory@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      18 days ago

      I like helping people, but not with what I do for my day job. Ask me to shovel your driveway or help you move or proofread your emails or anything but more of what I’ve already spent all day doing.

    • Red Army Dog Cooper@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      18 days ago

      I used to work in IT, and both then when I was on my personal time, and now, I do not love helping people, but all it takes is someone else doing it poorly would annoy me enough I would end up helping someone

    • blindbunny@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      18 days ago

      I’m with you but there’s definitely a line that gets crossed fairly often when you help people out with these things.