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The computer science degree isn’t dead

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Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#201

Post by camdenreslink »

lucianbr wrote: post #128
0xpgm wrote: post #116

Hypothetically if LLMs were possible in the early 90s, what would the software ecosystem look like today? Would it be 80s technology everywhere but widely deployed? Or would things have advanced further - better compilers, more ergonomic languages, better platforms etc? I don't know. But I suspect we'd still have needed people studying computer science to advance the state of the art. Now looking forward 30-40 years…

> better compilers, more ergonomic languages If anything it seems wide deployment of LLMs would go against this. When nobody writes code by hand anymore, who will care about the ergonomics of programming languages? And even if a few do care, how would you get adoption? I expect everyone will just use whatever is already used most.

I agree, it seems like the current most popular languages and frameworks will become ossified, because they have the highest amount of training data. It's hard to see a future where Python and JavaScript aren't the most popular languages to use (assuming LLM-assisted development is the norm moving forward).

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#202

Post by lucianbr »

__float wrote: post #171
lucianbr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better compilers, more ergonomic languages If anything it seems wide deployment of LLMs would go against this. When nobody writes code by hand anymore, who will care about the ergonomics of programming languages? And even if a few do care, how would you get adoption? I expect everyone will just use whatever is already used most.

Do you not review the code that LLMs output? It seems that now more than ever, testing is important. But LLMs love to cheat the tests and make them superficially pass. If you're never reading the code, how do you know changes are reasonable?

I do review, if only whatever I do was the norm for everyone :)

Do you see lots of posts about new compilers and languages and language features on HN in the last year? Maybe I just missed them. I'd love to read more posts like that and fewer about agent frameworks.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#203

Post by camdenreslink »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Get any kind of degree. A research degree is better. Not because people will ask you for your degree but because the effort of getting one teaches you how to learn new stuff. Especially a Ph D. degree. A few years into your career, you will have learned most of what you know on the job. I know plenty of programmers with degrees other than computer science. Geologists, biochemists, theoretical physicists, etc. Most ha…

Getting a PhD is almost never worth the foregone wages if your goal is to be in private industry. For sure, people should get one if they are interested in research, or specific jobs that are only available to people with PhDs. But otherwise it isn't something to get into half-hearted.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#204

Post by ericmcer »

taurath wrote: post #19

If one is thinking about not getting a degree and trying to go straight to work, as someone who did so (albiet out of poverty rather than choice) but didn't end up like Zuck, please heed my warning: Social capital matters more than just about anyone who has a degree can understand and tell you or mentor you about, because the majority of them have always had it, and they tend not even to interact with people without…

Similar story where as soon as someone made a 100k+ offer to me I dropped out of school and never looked back (was making $12/hr at the time).

In retrospect it was not the best choice because college does give you a unique chance to get connections that let you into "the club" and will send you to the upper echelons of FAANG and early retirement.

I always thought I would just become a better and better engineer cutting my teeth at startups and then make the switch, but now it almost feels like you are a career startup engineer or a career big tech engineer, and making the switch is difficult. One is obviously insanely more lucrative, probably 3-5X with the way equity has exploded.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#205

Post by aduwah »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #167
le-mark wrote: post #2

> The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently placed unemployment for recent CS graduates in the United States at 6.1 percent, with computer engineering graduates at 7.5 percent. Compared to philosophy majors at 3.2 percent and art history graduates at 3.0 percent, those figures look alarming. Alarming doesn’t begin to describe it. This is an existential crises for our industry. The situation for entry level has be…

Decades of experience here, and have not worked in over two years. Tell me again how I have nothing to worry about.

Experience does not really matter. What matters is a few shiny corp names and titles in your CV. No-one cares with merit these days

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#206

Post by retired »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #141
zipy124 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really does. The classic example I think of is Michael Caine discussing when he wanted to do housing renovations, and before he even submitted designs, he had neighbours and councillors complaining it was going to be "vulgar," "nouveau," and "obscene" simply because of his class. He also talked about the concept of working class people furthering the divide, for example his female family members referring to women…

I go back to the UK every so often for work. Being in EU countries is really weird, because they don't have 'class systems' (like the brits). Deference is given to your professional title, doctor, lawyer etc.

Belgium has a class system. Read up on the death of Sanda Dia, very light punishments since all suspects had well connected parents. Lawyers, judges, doctors, surgeons, business executives, entrepreneurs, bankers, corporate directors, politicians, senior civil servants, police officials.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#207

Post by bArray »

camdenreslink wrote: post #198
bArray wrote: post #130

This article tackles the issue from a job opportunity perspective, but a bigger problem is the quality of students completing CS degrees is declining. UC Berkley are seeing it in their STEM departments [1] and I have seen the raw data for other Universities delivering CS degrees that is unpublished. Currently the only method to stop students from cheating is to run strictly controlled paper-based exams, and with smar…

> many are doing class-wide weighted adjustments Isn't this just grading on a curve, which has been done probably as long as universities have existed? The key is the instructor making sure a high standard is met (which seems to be the crux of the issue).

Yes it has been in practice for a long time, but it's now being used to push clear fail cases into passing grades just to meet quotas. Prior it was used to adjust for particularly difficult assessments, and was closely monitored.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#208

Post by westoque »

taurath wrote: post #19

If one is thinking about not getting a degree and trying to go straight to work, as someone who did so (albiet out of poverty rather than choice) but didn't end up like Zuck, please heed my warning: Social capital matters more than just about anyone who has a degree can understand and tell you or mentor you about, because the majority of them have always had it, and they tend not even to interact with people without…

There's a formula I've bookmarked from someone to help you get better social capital. In order to increase your surface for social capital you need to expand your influence, therefore you need to increase your luck:

L (luck) = D (doing) x T (telling)

Basically, you need to be able to show you are able to do stuff (D) and with enough people seeing this by you sharing (T) through different channels, can open doors. I haven't been doing it as heavily but it has already given me incredible opportunities.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#209

Post by keiferski »

saturn8601 wrote: post #163
keiferski wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh it depends. I’ve worked at / with a lot of more traditional non-tech companies and you’d be amazed at how a lot of the software looks like Excel circa 1995. I guess they could be using third party software but it seems like often they are just using an ancient thing they built themselves.

Sounds like you are picturing WinForms in your mind (Was so awesome to create forms and ship really customized usable software quickly). Does business software really need to be super pretty?

No definitely doesn’t need to be pretty. My point is more that building and managing this stuff often requires a programmer. It’s not “cool” or cutting edge but it’s a job.

Re: The computer science degree isn’t dead

#210

Post by ericmcer »

EsotericSoft wrote: post #180
taurath wrote: post #19

If one is thinking about not getting a degree and trying to go straight to work, as someone who did so (albiet out of poverty rather than choice) but didn't end up like Zuck, please heed my warning: Social capital matters more than just about anyone who has a degree can understand and tell you or mentor you about, because the majority of them have always had it, and they tend not even to interact with people without…

Opposite of my experience. I never cared about social networking. I focused only on being good.

Yeah being good is great but... some of the best engineers I have ever met are working at small companies making 150k, while mediocre ones fell into Meta/Google/Tesla jobs during the pandemic hiring frenzy and are now looking at retirement.

If the goal is to be good that is fine, but there is little correlation with salary.

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