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Do I need a laptop for my CS course???

Hello,
I'm starting computer science at undergraduate level in October, most likely at Warwick.
:banana::banana:

1) Do I need a particularly powerful laptop?
At home right now, I already have a desktop and a hardy Dell D430 laptop (with a screwed up hard drive which needs fixing). Will this suffice?

2) The course starts with Java. But I really want to learn C/C++ beforehand. Will this be in danger of messing up my brain?

What do you use personal laptops for during the course? Do unis generally have their own laptops you can cart around with you?

Any other tips would also be much appreciated!
Reply 1
Original post by geekly
Hello,
I'm starting computer science at undergraduate level in October, most likely at Warwick.
:banana::banana:

1) Do I need a particularly powerful laptop?
At home right now, I already have a desktop and a hardy Dell D430 laptop (with a screwed up hard drive which needs fixing). Will this suffice?

2) The course starts with Java. But I really want to learn C/C++ beforehand. Will this be in danger of messing up my brain?

What do you use personal laptops for during the course? Do unis generally have their own laptops you can cart around with you?

Any other tips would also be much appreciated!


1)Yeah, you don't need something that powerful, a basic laptop will do the job, though we do get loads of guys on the course with higher end ones, playing games and so on in lecture, don't get intimidated looool

2)No it won't, in some areas of programming they are quite similar as Java is derived from C/C++.....so you'll have some difference, but you'll be at an advantage of learning it much quicker

No, uni's don't have laptops, they'll have desktops, your department should have a dedicated building of computers for use. I didn't even use a laptop, just used the dedicated building when I needed to
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by Iqbal007
1)Yeah, you don't something that powerful, a basic laptop will do the job, though we do get loads of guys on the course with higher end ones, playing games and so on in lecture, don't get intimidated looool

2)No it won't, in some areas of programming they are quite similar as Java is derived from C/C++.....so you'll have some difference, but you'll be at an advantage of learning it much quicker

No, uni's don't have laptops, they'll have desktops, your department should have a dedicated building of computers for use. I didn't even use a laptop, just used the dedicated building when I needed to



Thanks!:smile:
Original post by geekly
Hello,
I'm starting computer science at undergraduate level in October, most likely at Warwick.
:banana::banana:

1) Do I need a particularly powerful laptop?
At home right now, I already have a desktop and a hardy Dell D430 laptop (with a screwed up hard drive which needs fixing). Will this suffice?

2) The course starts with Java. But I really want to learn C/C++ beforehand. Will this be in danger of messing up my brain?

What do you use personal laptops for during the course? Do unis generally have their own laptops you can cart around with you?

Any other tips would also be much appreciated!


No you dont need anything too powerful but you still need to able to compile and execute code which may take longer on something old/crap.

Not really but it might be better to learn Java first, you may not get very far in these next few months with C(++), I wanted to learn C before I went to uni too but didnt get very far at all and started to look at Java just to get a bit of a head start instead.

Well id use my laptop when I had assignments and stuff to do but theres no reason you couldnt do them on one of the university PCs which im sure youll find when you get there. Sometimes id bring it to practicals and do my work on it instead of having to worry about making sure all of my files are on my memory stick. No, ive never heard of a university providing laptops. If it were me id at least pickup a half-decent fully-functional laptop.
Original post by geekly
Thanks!:smile:


You may find this lecture course very helpful if you want to get ahead of the game! First lecture is just university-specific stuff, but with 5 minutes of programming start at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFD86C5700CD96258&feature=mh_lolz
Reply 5
Thanks again :smile:

Hypercaine - Yeah I think my current D430 will do for now. Probably won't be doing anything too overwhelming in first few terms. If at any point my programming skills get so wicked to the point where it can't cope :cool: I'll buy a new laptop then.

I might end up following your route on C! Just picked up "The C Programming Language" by Kernighan yesterday and I'm only on page 14 :colondollar:. But according to techie relatives, C is the lingua franca of die hard programmers and it's worth learning first. I'm also attracted to its low level, primitive nature compared with Java.

Thanks Architechture-er! I'll be watching those over the summer. Hopefully they don't seduce me so that I kill myself trying to swim over the Atlantic to Stanford :happy2:
Reply 6
I would advise you to get a laptop or USB flash drive, to do your work on there..

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