The Dark Prince

It has been some time. Some time since I’ve written anything on here, and for those two or three people that actually read this less than interesting ramble, I apologise for not wasting more of your time. For the last month or so I have been overburdened with university assignments.

Unfortunately these assignments were group assignments, which roughly translated means: I had to do them entirely by myself. To be honest, one of my groups (of seven, seven) people is very good, they are competant, sensible and plucky enough to say what they think, yet reasonable enough to actually listen to others. Well, except for one of these who thinks he’s better than everyone else, despite his huge lack of understanding anything at all. I digress, my remaining teams of 3 (myself included) are, to be honest, completely hopeless and should never have been enrolled in the course.

This of course brings me to the point of todays meandering drivel, better. Even when you are young, you know when you are better or worse than someone at something. It’s undeniable, you can see it, they can see it and it’s silently acknowledged. So why is it so damn rude/arrogant/nasty for me to just point out the obvious. I am better than these people, they have no idea, so it’s not really giving me any credit, it’s like saying that a piece of land is higher above sea level than the earths core, the comparison means little and no-one would deny it.

Yet somehow, for me to get up, stand on a table if I must, and declare that I am at least as good if not better than most people in my course you immediately think, “snob”. Don’t tell me you didn’t. I know you did, I can see the words forming, there’s the ’s’ now. The fact remains that the reason software engineering “..is in crisis!!!”, (look at any textbook on software design to obtain a similar quote), is not because of poor planning, lack of diagrams with strange shapes on them or lack of a proper SRS. It’s because, (and I speak only for my university, which admittedly is a nest of pretension), almost the entire collection of undergraduate computing students SUCK!

Maybe it’s because I had to do three persons’ work of a two month project over a week…twice.. Maybe it’s because when I read the newsgroups to try and discover any new information on assignments there are pages of idiocy written by the same moron trying to impress people. Maybe it’s just the fact that there is a stupid guy who has a perpetual smarmy grin on his face that makes me want to hit him over and over again, (hearing him talk makes matters even worse), but I just can’t get over the amazing lack of any redeeming feature, academic or otherwise of pretty much everyone in my course.

On another note, I have to thank a few of my friends, all of whom know who they are and if they don’t then they’re stupid anyway. I have had a really rough time getting through these projects and I couldn’t do it without you. Anyone who I asked for advice or support should know that I don’t think the same of them, it’s just very depressing to know that these people will be unleashed onto some hapless software that people will buy and expect to work.