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Computer science courses that don't exist, but should (2015)

prog21.dadgum.com

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Re: Computer science courses that don't exist, but should (2015)

#6
post #3

Where’s the course on managing your reaction when the client starts moving the goal posts on a project that you didn’t specify well enough (or at all), because you’re a young eager developer without any scars yet?

some scars need to be earned

Re: Computer science courses that don't exist, but should (2015)

#8
post #3

Where’s the course on managing your reaction when the client starts moving the goal posts on a project that you didn’t specify well enough (or at all), because you’re a young eager developer without any scars yet?

Back in the 90s, this was actually a sneaky part of Dartmouth's CS23 Software Engineering course. At least half your grade came from a 5-person group software project which took half a semester. The groups were chosen for you, of course.

The professors had a habit of sending out an email one week before the due date (right before finals week) which contained several updates to the spec.

It was a surprisingly effective course.

(Dartmouth also followed this up with a theory course that often required writing about 10 pages of proofs per week. I guess they wanted a balance of practice and theory, which isn't the worst way to teach CS.)

Re: Computer science courses that don't exist, but should (2015)

#9
It is interesting that no software engineering or computer science course I’ve seen has ever spent any time on CI/CD.

Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, none of these sorts of things - and I don’t even mean these specific technologies, but moreover nothing even in their ballpark.

Re: Computer science courses that don't exist, but should (2015)

#10
> CSCI 3300: Classical Software Studies

Alan Kay, my favorite curmudgeon, spent decades trying to remind us we keep reinventing concepts that were worked out in the late 70s and he’s disappointed we’ve been running in circles ever since. He’s still disappointed because very few programmers are ever introduced to the history of computer science in the way that artists study the history of art or philosophers the history of philosophy.

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