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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

#111

Post by whitfieldsdad »

noway421 wrote: post #108
AnishLaddha wrote: post #104

i feel like this is being blown way out of proportion. learning git is never the bottleneck to becoming a software engineer, and it doesn't take longer than an hour to grasp the basics. CS majors should learn it just by messing around with projects, but I don't see why an otherwise great candidate couldn't learn it very quickly

Can a candidate be great if they haven't messed around with projects in a group setting?

Obviously, yes.

It's worth noting that the person who said that they'd only hire junior developers who know git isn't the President of the United States or anything, and can absolutely make their own hiring decisions.

It's perfectly reasonable to make your own hiring decisions, IMO, and asking people to know git, or the fundamentals of version control seems totally fair, IMO.

If people are willing to spend a few weeks solving leetcode problems, or answering mock interview questions, I feel like they could absolutely spend 15-30 minutes learning how to use git.

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

#112

Post by DougN7 »

seadan83 wrote: post #71
DougN7 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any code base?? I question your depth of exposure.

Been programming since 98, professionally since 08. If a codebase has no VCS.. that seems almost ideological. I've done a git init on a linux file system to understand patch changes. With that aside, what does disaster recovery look like without VCS? Remote backups ate an obtuse form of VCS. If your laptop explodes, are you losing months of work? I mentor junior devs to push daily, if their laptop blows up I want the…

I agree with you. I misread “VCS” for “git” and that’s where my (mistaken) disagreement came from.

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

#113

Post by kaycey2022 »

the_snooze wrote: post #49
mr_mitm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on that, and maybe my view is a bit too traditional, but my understanding is that universities ought to prepare you to become a scientist. At least that's how it was historically. They are not meant to be "vocational training plus" or to subsidize the industry by training the work force for them. (It might be different for colleges, I'm mainly speaking from a European perspective.) I know times have changed…

I'm a researcher in one of the more "applied" subfields of CS (security and privacy), and we absolutely use standard software engineering tools day-to-day. You're not going to be a productive member of a research group if you don't know how to navigate the tools of the trade. Research isn't about using Git, Bash, or Docker, but you're dead weight if you can't wield those. Here's a serious research venue asking for te…

Don't university research groups primarily produce papers? Producing "technical artifacts for reproducability" must be a new thing (if at all).

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

#114

Post by kaycey2022 »

cellis wrote: post #35
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…

As someone who has used GIT a fair amount over the last 15 years, it has literally one of the worst developer experiences, right up there with C, python’s package management, cuda kernel development or shader debugging, ffmpeg, Scala, MongoDB, and Rust. All of those tools are very useful in todays world but they’re not necessary to do the job,and unless I’m specifically hiring for that skillset I wouldn’t ding anyone…

Mongodb atlas, their managed service, feels like magic. I think it gets an unfair rap because of skill issues.

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

#115

Post by kaycey2022 »

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.

I would say that you can put physical computers in that same category. It is unnecessary for a good computer scientist to even touch a computer to acquire the scientific skills required to call yourself a computer scientist.

https://xkcd.com/378/

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

#116

Post by the_snooze »

kaycey2022 wrote: post #113
the_snooze wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a researcher in one of the more "applied" subfields of CS (security and privacy), and we absolutely use standard software engineering tools day-to-day. You're not going to be a productive member of a research group if you don't know how to navigate the tools of the trade. Research isn't about using Git, Bash, or Docker, but you're dead weight if you can't wield those. Here's a serious research venue asking for te…

Don't university research groups primarily produce papers? Producing "technical artifacts for reproducability" must be a new thing (if at all).

It is a fairly new thing in the security/privacy academic research community (probably just in the last 5 years or so, and still spreading), but a very welcome one. Not only does it encourage reproducability, but it also helps authors have a broader impact if their work is in evaluating ideas and offering practical proofs-of-concept that other people can easily build upon. It's all optional for the venues I deal with, yet lots of people do turn in artifacts for their accepted papers. For all we know, the next Let's Encrypt (itself partially a University of Michigan project) could start as a submitted artifact.

Other calls for artifacts if you're curious:

- https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/call-for-...

- https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2025/submisions/call-for-...

- https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2024/call-for/call-for-artifac...

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

#118

Post by shreezus »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #13

CS degrees aren’t meant to teach any particular skill. They should be teaching general knowledge that helps you adapt to whatever the FOTM is in industry. Realistically you can learn to use git in less than one day. It just shouldn’t be a significant barrier to hiring someone. None of the specific languages or software I learned during my degree do I even use now in my current role.

Anecdotally, some of the best engineers I have worked with were entirely self-taught.

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

#119

Post by stale2002 »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #61

Here's a thought. Imagine there's another new way of doing things that quickly becomes pretty much ubiquitous in programming (containers may be a good example?). For those who have already graduated long ago and thus didn't learn that new thing in university are you seriously concerned about the people graduating not being rote taught this particular technology? Git isn't even 20 years old. I graduated before that. I…

> the people demanding new graduates be rote taught specific tech stacks

If people were graduating from college with a CS degree, and didn't know how to use a keyboard and mouse, then yes Id advocate for them to be "rote taught" basic keyboard and mouse skills that they should have learned in elementary school.

It would show that something is extremely wrong going on if the most basic of skill set isn't know by people who's entire field of study involves computers, and didn't know how basic interactions with a computer work.

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

#120

Post by thunky »

knighthack wrote: post #14
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #13

CS degrees aren’t meant to teach any particular skill. They should be teaching general knowledge that helps you adapt to whatever the FOTM is in industry. Realistically you can learn to use git in less than one day. It just shouldn’t be a significant barrier to hiring someone. None of the specific languages or software I learned during my degree do I even use now in my current role.

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…

> they have no desire to learn beyond what's taught

You know, sometimes 100% is enough. Have a beer and relax.

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