Assistant Prof. of Computer Science, Chris Mayfield from James Madison University https://www.jmu.edu/cs/ people/faculty/mayfield-chris.shtml
“You can actually help people using computer science, as much as you could if you become a vet, or a nurse, or a teacher.” Dr. Chris Mayfield, assistant professor of Computer Science at James Madison University
Rebecca Dovi, Director of Education at Code Virginia
“Computers are very literal, and frankly kind of dumb, so the commands we use have to be very specific.” Rebecca Dovi, the Director of
Education at Code Virginia http://bit.ly/2hN9cc3
may have needed a four-year degree, now some companies are hiring folks with less education, and out of informal environments, like boot camps.” Dovi explains that “with over 500,000 jobs open in the field nationally, there are opportunities whatever your educational level might be,” and potentially big salaries to boot.
MAKING AN IMPACT
Mayfield emphasizes, however, that the most important thing about computer science is the effect you can have across the globe. “You can actually help people using computer science, as much as you could if you become a vet, or a nurse, or a teacher,” he says. “You can study computer science and go into any sector of industry. You can change the way the government operates, or the way animal shelters operate. You can create an app that helps disabled people get access to services they never had before. Computer science is not just making Minecraft.” That’s the hidden but transformational world of computer science. You may be behind a screen, but your impact can significantly change how people work, behave and even heal - every day. Casey Kesterson is currently studying Computer Science at James Madison University and will be graduating in May 2017.
HOT[
C O D I N G[
LANGUAGES
By Casey Kesterson
So what are the hot coding languages these days?
There are several different methodologies that can be used to measure popularity of programming languages. These include either one or a combination of criteria, such as the number of job advertisements, the number of open projects, the number of existing lines of codes, the number of students that are enrolled in classes, the number of times shown in web searches or Google Trends, and other new relevant factors that can be included based on market analysis trends. http://bit.ly/2icGvo8 POPULAR RANKING LISTS: Tiobe http://bit.ly/2bvSOHQ uses search engine aggregates to calculate language popularity Coding Dojo http://bit.ly/1nyrkWu aggregates stats from the job search engine www.Indeed.com PyPl http://bit.ly/2eJ2rnC looks at the popularity of language tutorials on Google IEEE Spectrum http://bit.ly/2abjzOO synthesizes rankings from 10 sources (Google search of “X programming;” Google Trends; Twitter; GitHub; StackOverflow; Reddit; Hacker News; CareerBuilder; Dice; IEEE Xplore Digital Library) HERE ARE SOME LANGUAGES THAT ARE USED IN POPULAR PRODUCTS: http://on.inc.com/1LWZqcm Note that many of these products can be created using multiple languages together. PYTHON: PINTEREST, INSTAGRAM, AND SPOTIFY USE IT. Instagram currently features the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework, which is written entirely in Python http://bit.ly/2j26lMT Pinterest uses python + heavily-modified Django at the application layer http://bit.ly/2jckPHd Spotify uses Java, Python, C, C++ http://bit.ly/2jnnZrd PHP: IT IS THE BEATING HEART OF MONSTER SITES LIKE WORDPRESS AND FACEBOOK. http://on.inc.com/1LWZqcm OBJECTIVE-C: OBJECTIVE-C IS THE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE BEHIND IOS APPS. http://on.inc.com/1LWZqcm JAVA: USED IN WWW.LINKEDIN.COM, WWW.NETFLIX.COM, WWW.AMAZON.COM, AND ANDROID DEVELOPMENT TO NAME A FEW. It “is used to power company websites like www.LinkedIn.com, www.Netflix.com and www.Amazon.com.” http://bit.ly/1nyrkWu “The official language for Android development is Java.” http://bit.ly/1E4yhp4 C# AND JAVASCRIPT: USED IN CREATING VIDEO GAMES IN UNITY. The languages you can use to create your own video games in Unity are C# and JavaScript. http://bit.ly/2gjkdz8 GO: USED IN UBER. Uber uses Go for geofence lookups (a human-defined geographic area, or polygon in geometry terms, on the Earth’s surface—like a neighborhood) to be able to do things like raise prices in areas where lots of rides are being requested. http://ubr.to/20qK4F4
STEM Magazine • Winter 2017 • www.nextstepu.com
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