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Computer Science can be taught without a student ever having used a computer; it's a branch of mathematics. Would you expect a mathematician to know what a .tar file is? Reminds me of a quote from one of the most famous Computer Scientists, who was really a mathematician: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - E. W. Dijkstra (1930 - 2002)
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Why isn't it?
this is important, because anyone with any degree of genuine curiosity will have at least seen a tar file in the context of compression. if you use winrar, tar files are included in the open file list. with any sense of curiosity and intuition one would guess a tar file has to do with compression. i may not expect someone to know how to use a tar, but i would expect them to know what one is.
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OT: I'm in a similar situation: I've 11 years' experience and want to take some CS classes now that I live near Berkeley. Any tips?
I can't speak for Berkeley, but my favorite classes in CS were always the ones on Algorithms and novel languages. Avoid classes that teach syntax, unless the syntax is used to highlight a language feature you have never encountered before, like continuations or currying.
We had a guy at our company with a Masters in cs and he didn't know the shortcuts for copy and paste! His first code review was unbelievably painful. Suffice to say he didn't last too long.
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Why isn't it?
What's important is whether this person has any important skills that you care about. Also, it's quite possible to get by under Windows without knowing anything about tar files.
Computer Science can be taught without a student ever having used a computer; it's a branch of mathematics. Would you expect a mathematician to know what a .tar file is? Reminds me of a quote from one of the most famous Computer Scientists, who was really a mathematician: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - E. W. Dijkstra (1930 - 2002)
This is true, in the purest sense of CS. However, how much pure mathematical theory can you fill three and a half years of university education with? I would imagine that a comp sci department where they never reach a point where the "rubber meets the road" is not worth the trouble.
In my CS classes they had exercises, but students where left on their own with the details of programming. OK, there might have been dedicated courses on "how to solve the exercises", but still.
My first day in the computer lab I was completely lost, because I had gotten into Computers with Commodore C64 and then later DOS+Windows 3.1, and I had no idea how UNIX works. Other times, though - WWW was in it's earliest infancy, today it is certainly easier to get information on UNIX.
Using Notepad for programming, however, is really odd...
eh I don't really feel that a professor should go through and explain common filetypes, that really isn't computer science. However, if a 21 year old is passionate about programming, they will have come into contact with a command line and tar files on their own obviously.
I'm passionnate about programming, but computers and OSes are just a pain getting in my way.
eh I don't really feel that a professor should go through and explain common filetypes, that really isn't computer science. However, if a 21 year old is passionate about programming, they will have come into contact with a command line and tar files on their own obviously.
Agreed. It's not the school's responsibility to teach a student what a .tar is, but if the kid is doing any programming out of personal interest he should have come across it. In my experience, CS students who know what they are doing are usually using Mac or Linux by the time they graduate.