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The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

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Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#51

Post by seadan83 »

serf wrote: post #24

who cares? git is a tool, not a discipline. It's made to facilitate work, not to create a whole knowledge domain unto itself. I wouldn't fault a seasoned and well trained mechanic for not knowing the specifics of a specialty tool necessitating the need to find the manual; similarly although git is the current VCS-ish thing of choice right now, it doesn't represent all of computer science.

VCS is something that is interacted with multiple times a day in any codebase. It is a basic tool, not too far apart from being able to traverse a file system. The next step after viewing files, is being able to commit to and view the history of those files.

I dont know if that answers "who cares", but a mechanic that does not know how to do something they need to do multiple times every day - there is a skill gap. While CS is about theory, I would expect a CS grad to have used all of the basic programming tools and more.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#52

Post by WalterSear »

jordanpg wrote: post #33

Whether CS grads know this or that tech is irrelevant. What matters is are they curious and how quickly they can self teach this or that tech. And besides, learning the basics of git should be an afterthought for someone being hired for a programming job!! Come on.* * Not gatekeeping here, I'm just trying to say that in the spectrum of tasks an entry-level programmer will need to get good at, git is a minor footnote.…

Whether CS grads know how to use version control tells you how much actual CS they worked with while acquiring their degree.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#53

Post by seadan83 »

jmull wrote: post #50
knighthack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is not just a fad; it's a literal underpinning of most serious software development these days, especially if you need to work with others. That a CS grad doesn't even know basic Git is telling not of their degree, but of the individual themselves - that they have no desire to learn beyond what's taught, and couldn't even be bothered to look into the requirements of the industry that they want to work in. I argue…

A couple things... First, git doesn't especially solve problems that CS majors have until they are near the end of their courses. The need to manage collaboration, organization, and change in a code base is trivial until pretty late in a CS program, and typically never gets past basic. Second, the context here is the git command-line interface. People can and do use git extensively without it. Third, git's not exactl…

Git would have been helpful to me in my very first intro to programming course. It fixes those situations of: "arg, I changed one thing - it no longer works, and I'm not even sure anymore what that one thing was!"

Second, a successful CS grad has hopefully written at least something that is at least 2000 lines long. Doing that without VCS of any kind is not impressive, it is obtuse. That is a strong no hire signal imo.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#54

Post by orwin »

jmull wrote: post #50
knighthack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is not just a fad; it's a literal underpinning of most serious software development these days, especially if you need to work with others. That a CS grad doesn't even know basic Git is telling not of their degree, but of the individual themselves - that they have no desire to learn beyond what's taught, and couldn't even be bothered to look into the requirements of the industry that they want to work in. I argue…

A couple things... First, git doesn't especially solve problems that CS majors have until they are near the end of their courses. The need to manage collaboration, organization, and change in a code base is trivial until pretty late in a CS program, and typically never gets past basic. Second, the context here is the git command-line interface. People can and do use git extensively without it. Third, git's not exactl…

I had a different CS course than you, because git (as a remote storage and version control tool, using branches and submodules came later) and bash were the two first thing I had to learn on the first day (how to use diff and patch was on the second day if I remember right).

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#56

Post by cassianoleal »

serf wrote: post #32
knighthack wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Git is not just a fad; it's a literal underpinning of most serious software development these days, especially if you need to work with others. That a CS grad doesn't even know basic Git is telling not of their degree, but of the individual themselves - that they have no desire to learn beyond what's taught, and couldn't even be bothered to look into the requirements of the industry that they want to work in. I argue…

>Git is not just a fad; it's a literal underpinning of most serious software development these days, especially if you need to work with others. yeah, but all of the VCSs before git could've claimed the same thing. if that's not a fad, what is? i'm glad git is the soup du jourre today , it's a lot nicer to use than it's ancestors -- but it's not like there isn't room for improvement, either. that's how git came about…

> especially when there is money to be made by doing things better.

Is there though? Why would I pay for a VCS when there already is Git, Mercurial and other free and open source solutions?

Git may not be the most intuitive but it's a solid product and most people work well with it, even those who every now and then delete and re-clone a repo because they don't know another way to get out of a pickle.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#57

Post by seadan83 »

WolfeReader wrote: post #45
qludes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they're focused on theoretical CS they should still be using git to upload their tex files somewhere in 2024. And from an undergrad degree I'd expect both an OS class and an algorithm or datastructurs course that would use some kind of VCS. Or maybe all that doesn't exist when you attend Canadian Chromebook degree mills?

Why would an algorithms and data structures course be the place to teach Git? It is not an algorithm or a data structure.

Data structures is where I learned how to write test code. It was the best way to actually get the algorithms correct.

If we had git back then.. I remember one bug that took 6 hours to find, finally found it at 8am before the 10am class. Was typing as fast as I could for the next two hours... If there any kind of basic VCS back then that would have been as easy to use - it would have been many fewer all nighters.

Which is to say, a data structures class should have students coding. There are a number of skills you want when coding, basic and common skills that just make it a ton easier. Namely, confidence and iteration speed go up a ton when you can rollback. A modern IDE can do a lot of that too..

I guess I'm becoming an old fart, I've no idea why basic and helpful tools would not be emphasized early. Debugging with those tools is one of those things you want to learn. It helps build a data/fact based approach to coding.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#58

Post by seadan83 »

blobcode wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that MIT’s missing semester course aims to help with ( https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ ), and although computer science is different from software engineering, the reality is that most CS grads go into software engineering, and thus should try and learn these essential skills.

Computer science in the graphics space requires a ton of gnarly coding. If we consider post-doc computer science in particular, the idea you dont then need to be at least a semi-competent programmer is.. a surprising idea to have.

Which is to say, the idea CS do not need to ever code is a stretch. How does a person work on cutting edge graphics algorithms without building something with it? Without coding in a pretty serious way?

One example, at the end of my intro to programming, the final assignment was to build something, I wrote a chess program (with a GUI). While some classes are quite theoretical, I strongly disagree that a person can get through all of a CS program without their coding skills being challenged.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#59

Post by qludes »

WolfeReader wrote: post #45
qludes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they're focused on theoretical CS they should still be using git to upload their tex files somewhere in 2024. And from an undergrad degree I'd expect both an OS class and an algorithm or datastructurs course that would use some kind of VCS. Or maybe all that doesn't exist when you attend Canadian Chromebook degree mills?

Why would an algorithms and data structures course be the place to teach Git? It is not an algorithm or a data structure.

Because part of the homework could be implementing algorithms and data structures. Even if that's done in pseudocode you'd probably want to expose your students to some form of VCS at that point. At my old faculty for example you worked through 1/3 of CLRS as part of the lecture and then implemented a few algorithms and data structures in both Java and C++ under the guidance of TAs.

So even students who failed the programming part and passed by acing the exam and the theoretic part knew what a shell was, what a compiler and linker did, how to find documentation and how to actually do all that on either their laptop or a provided thin client.

And most classes were set up like this. As a first semster student you'd be submitting your MIPS assembler homework using a VCS etc.

Re: The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding

#60

Post by [deleted] »

jordanpg wrote: post #33

Whether CS grads know this or that tech is irrelevant. What matters is are they curious and how quickly they can self teach this or that tech. And besides, learning the basics of git should be an afterthought for someone being hired for a programming job!! Come on.* * Not gatekeeping here, I'm just trying to say that in the spectrum of tasks an entry-level programmer will need to get good at, git is a minor footnote.…

[deleted]
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