Went through the syllabus. The content is really useful since I spent most of my post-graduate years reading man pages for various debugging tools.
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
261–270 of 347 posts
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#262My university had Dijkstra's quote "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes". They made us aware of tools and we were free to use them as little or as much as possible to do the science. I always assumed that software engineering degrees focused on tools more than computer science degrees (among other differences).
This was my first thought too. The tools talked about in the link are useful but they aren’t really computer science. This was also hit home in my CS courses. I was being taught the science behind computers, not necessarily the practical application of them.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's definitely a thing with CS that, at least at more elite schools, there's an assumption that you more or less know how to program--at least a language like Python--and you also more or less know your way around a computer well enough to use it as a tool for programming. (Or you pick it up quickly on the side along with your full course load.) This is more or less unique among college majors outside of some art…
But is it common for kids to be taught how to code before they come to uni? I would imagine it's not that easy to find someone to teach that sort of thing, so then the only kids who graduate high school with any tech skills are the ones who did it themselves. Your point about engineering is exactly right. I built a working radio in my first term, having never done anything like it before, save for acing some physics…
Even if it's more like hacking around in Python than being "properly" taught, I assume that it's pretty common for a technically-inclined and motivated high school student to play around with a Raspberry Pi. I imagine I'd be doing so if I were in high school today. In addition to books, there are also some pretty breezy intro to programming MOOCs out there that wouldn't be out of the reach of a smart high-schooler.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#264When I was at University of Denver, this was exactly the kind of thing covered in a course called “Unix Tools” and it was hands-down the most valuable quarter I spent there. I had assumed it was a standard thing across CS programs.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#265When I was at University of Denver, this was exactly the kind of thing covered in a course called “Unix Tools” and it was hands-down the most valuable quarter I spent there. I had assumed it was a standard thing across CS programs.
Same thing at my state uni. We used https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/unix-power-tools/059600... as our textbook, and I still keep it on my shelf 20 years later.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#266I personally don't like the undertone of the class (tho very grateful that this material exists!!!) - this idea that universities are failing their students by not teaching them necessary material. I think a better phrasing is that students are failing themselves by not learning the material. I've personally never considered it the responsibility of my university to educate me - some of the classes are certainly usef…
People are going to really dislike what you said but I agree to a certain extent, especially when it comes to the basics of working in the command line. If somebody can't read the manual on that and figure it out then they are going to be so hopeless for so many other things that I don't want anything to do with them.
If someone has literally never opened a terminal with a command line, you're probably being rather dismissive of how unintuitive it will be for a lot of people at first.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
LaTeX was written by a famous computer scientist to write a computer science book. Yes, mathematicians love it. But computer scientists were first there.
Maybe a useful skill but it's not a CS skill so it's slightly odd to teach it. Same with Emacs tbh. Students could easily use VSCode (and it would probably be better for a CS class).
I always laugh abit about this, the purists are just insane, yes you can do things in one way forever but you dont have to.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you’re conflating two different things: universities selecting and presenting a syllabus needed to earn a certain degree, and students actually learning the material. The latter is the solely the responsibility of each student, but I don’t understand why the former would be. Some of the content in this course strikes me as unknown unknowns for new programmers. Why would they be to blame if no one told them to…
Honestly, because its something that should be a prerequisite for starting the degree program in the same way basic algebra is a prerequisite. Likewise, not knowing you need to know this stuff is a sign that you are probably not at the point where you should even be able to have declared the major. The fact that colleges allow this at all is doing a disservice to students, many of whom will go on to permanently damag…
So, beyond a fairly standard high school curriculum and not too much distaste for math, what implicit requirements should we add for physics, mechanical engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, material science, etc.? Because where I went to school, there were no special requirements for those majors--nor for CS/EE. Is CS today unique for some reason among STEM majors?
Different majors have varying degrees of difficulty for different people. By and large schools don't (and shouldn't) get into the business of heavily policing who gets to give a particular major a whirl.
Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#269Caltech's mechanical engineering program did not teach you how to use machine tools. The courses were all math, more math, lotsa math, a heapin helpin of math, with a side dish of math.
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Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)
#270I personally don't like the undertone of the class (tho very grateful that this material exists!!!) - this idea that universities are failing their students by not teaching them necessary material. I think a better phrasing is that students are failing themselves by not learning the material. I've personally never considered it the responsibility of my university to educate me - some of the classes are certainly usef…
I'm surprised anyone would object to this. Universities have a responsibility to prepare their students. When I saw the title I figured it was another "computer science" class. But the curriculum was a significant portion of what I lacked when I graduated, which prevented me from finding work for a year. Had someone at university told me before I graduated that I'd have no chance of finding work if I didn't know Git,…
Can you elaborate on how not knowing those things specifically is what led to you not being able to find work
Did your interviews ask specific questions about Git, Linux things not covered in a standard operating systems course, and command line editing?