Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#111

Post by cabalamat » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 12:45 PM UTC

IsaacL wrote: post #99

cabalamat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not just a CS issue, it's universal and the real damage is being done in the second tier establishments where grade inflation and dumbed-down courses are endemic. It's worse that that, because the dumbing down doesn't just effect universities. Secondary school science education has also been badly hit. The links that follow contain actual questions from GCSE science exams (note for non-British people: a GCS…

"For example, in a biology exam, a question asked whether you see with your eye, ears, nose or mouth -- " No it doesn't. The question is "which organ contains light receptors?", which although simple, does requires some knowledge of scientific jargon. And this is on the foundation paper, for which the maximum mark is a C - IIRC, the intermediate and higher papers don't include questions this easy. This type of questi…

> although simple, does requires some knowledge of scientific jargon

Knowledge of jargon isn't the same as knowledge of science.

The problem is not so much that the questions are too easy, it is that they are not science questions, because they don't test knowledge of scientific concepts.

It would be easy to ask questions that are science questions but that are also easy questions (for less able or younger examinees).

For example in physics one could ask: A man went to the top of a tall building, and threw a glass from it. The glass landed on concrete 30 m below. What happened to the glass when it landed? he then dropped a rubber ball; what happened to the ball when it landed?

Or a simple biology question: A woman wanted to breed striped cats. She had a male cat and a female cat. Both cats were coloured black all over. She painted white stripes on both cats, then got them to have sex. Is this likely to produce striped kittens?

These are very easy questions, yet to answer them one needs to understand important concepts about science. Teaching science is about teaching concepts, not about rote learning of definitions. Unfortunately the bumbling incompetents who're in charge of education don't seem to understand that.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#112

Post by scott_s » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 12:55 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #101

endtime wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his claim is based on the belief that Java has no academic merit (in the context of the other languages he mentioned) - it's just useful for development.

Well exactly. What aspect of theoretical computer science is Java better suited to teaching than any other language? Kids these days don't understand that computer science and software development are distinct disciplines.

I suspect you're abusing the term "theoretical computer science," which is surprisingly common in this crowd. I assume you actually mean basic computer science concepts relevant to programming.

To address your question, Java abstracts away memory management - not just dynamic memory allocation, but common off-by-one mistakes will result in a runtime exception. It's possible, but unlikely, that you'll get a segfault in C. You probably own the memory just past your array, and you're more likely to get strange errors because you're invisibly overwriting values.

If you want to focus on algorithmic thinking, and not the realities of a computer, this is a win. As another posted pointed out above, I think other languages are better suited for this, but Java is still valid.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#113

Post by scott_s » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 12:59 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #100

scott_s wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comments like there are border-line trolls in a community like HN. The languages used in various parts of a CS curriculum are one component to the whole. Holding up that component as the reason that the sky is falling is, at best, disingenuous. I can construct terrible CS curriculums that start with C, and terrific ones that start with Java. If those who construct the curriculum want the beginning courses to…

"If those who construct the curriculum want the beginning courses to focus on algorithmic thinking, I think it's fair to use a language that abstracts away much of the physical machine. The abstractions can be peeled away in later courses." I don't know that Java does this all the much better than C. The problem with C for a beginning student isn't so much that you have to manage memory manually--it generally takes a…

I purposefully phrased my statement to allow for dynamic language like Python - which is what I would probably choose for a starting language. I constructed my comment to also address the same arguments that have popped up in the "MIT switched to Python" discussions.

I've taught intro to Java labs to undergrads, and I did get questions on the scaffolding required. I answered their question, but also told them they don't need to understand that now. I'd rather not have to do that.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#114

Post by Goladus » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 1:26 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #96

He does have a point, but something is missing in most such lamentations of watered down academic standards. It's that education, in the past, was not meant to be vocational training and therefore the eoconomic case for broadening access just wasn't there. Knowing classic literature was not (functionally) why upper class kids of past times went on to earn much more than their lower class peers. It was just part of th…

There are lots of problems with the Mozart analogy. For one, Mozart was trained by his Father. His education in music began at a very young age (which is common among many if not most of the highly successful classical concert musicians in the world).

For another, despite the fact that Mozart's music was creative (I've loved every Mozart piece I've ever heard performed well and most of those that haven't), from a superficial perspective many of them are also remarkably similar. If you aren't ready to appreciate subtle differences you aren't ready to appreciate Mozart for many of the reasons his music remained popular for 200 years after his death.

Which brings me to the next point, which is that he talks about Mozart's music existing in a sort of historical vacuum, and doesn't bother to compare Mozart's work to the work of his contemporaries [1]. Most of his contemporaries have been forgotten by the mainstream, for various reasons, but while they were alive they still produced a lot of music.

Finally, while there is creativity in science and one can take a scientific approach to creating (or "discovering") music, it's difficult to argue that the importance of scientific rigor is not more important in a paper about Algorithms for Mesh Analysis than in a Piano Concerto in Eb Major.

[1] Wikipedia lists 64 composers in Mozart's era: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Classical_era_composers...

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#115

Post by Goladus » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 1:29 PM UTC

Goladus wrote: post #114

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #96

He does have a point, but something is missing in most such lamentations of watered down academic standards. It's that education, in the past, was not meant to be vocational training and therefore the eoconomic case for broadening access just wasn't there. Knowing classic literature was not (functionally) why upper class kids of past times went on to earn much more than their lower class peers. It was just part of th…

There are lots of problems with the Mozart analogy. For one, Mozart was trained by his Father. His education in music began at a very young age (which is common among many if not most of the highly successful classical concert musicians in the world). For another, despite the fact that Mozart's music was creative (I've loved every Mozart piece I've ever heard performed well and most of those that haven't), from a sup…

It's probably worth noting that the point of the article doesn't rely much on the Mozart analogy.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#116

Post by philwelch » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 2:07 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #113

philwelch wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If those who construct the curriculum want the beginning courses to focus on algorithmic thinking, I think it's fair to use a language that abstracts away much of the physical machine. The abstractions can be peeled away in later courses." I don't know that Java does this all the much better than C. The problem with C for a beginning student isn't so much that you have to manage memory manually--it generally takes a…

I purposefully phrased my statement to allow for dynamic language like Python - which is what I would probably choose for a starting language. I constructed my comment to also address the same arguments that have popped up in the "MIT switched to Python" discussions. I've taught intro to Java labs to undergrads, and I did get questions on the scaffolding required. I answered their question, but also told them they do…

I would argue that Scheme fulfills the same purpose we discussed--getting out of the way and letting students focus on algorithms--except it emphasizes expressing those algorithms in a functional style.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#117

Post by endtime » Mon, Aug 03, 2009, 7:49 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #112

gaius wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well exactly. What aspect of theoretical computer science is Java better suited to teaching than any other language? Kids these days don't understand that computer science and software development are distinct disciplines.

I suspect you're abusing the term "theoretical computer science," which is surprisingly common in this crowd. I assume you actually mean basic computer science concepts relevant to programming. To address your question, Java abstracts away memory management - not just dynamic memory allocation, but common off-by-one mistakes will result in a runtime exception. It's possible, but unlikely, that you'll get a segfault i…

It's quite possible to argue that lambda calculus is not relevant to software development - I think that's the sort of thing gaius was talking about.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#118

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Aug 04, 2009, 2:35 AM UTC

miked wrote: post #94

I_got_fifty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be the socialist in me, but schools should always be public. No business should be involved in educating the next generation. I think of universities more like a R&D department for the general public. (which also is why I think all software developed in universities should be Free)

Based on what data? Almost every country in the world is more socialist that the (former) U.S. None of those countries' university systems come close to that of the U.S. And what are the best universities in the U.S.? MIT, CalTech, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. (private) vs. UC Berkeley and UCLA (public). The latter two are soon to feel the financial collapse of California.

That may have something to do with the immense budgets for defense the US has, a portion of that money goes towards research in universities.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#119

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Aug 04, 2009, 2:41 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #101

endtime wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his claim is based on the belief that Java has no academic merit (in the context of the other languages he mentioned) - it's just useful for development.

Well exactly. What aspect of theoretical computer science is Java better suited to teaching than any other language? Kids these days don't understand that computer science and software development are distinct disciplines.

One step further: If you think that learning a specific language in university is going to get you a job you are not studying computer science, you should be going to a trade school.

A cs degree is universal, it should be language agnostic.

One computer language or another, it doesn't matter one bit, they're all functionally equivalent. Just like a chef cook has 30 knives to choose from you have a palette of languages that you could choose from to solve a given problem.

If you really understand computers then the languages are just a means to an end.

Re: Why I am Not a Professor, or The Decline and Fall of the British University

#120

Post by christofd » Tue, Aug 04, 2009, 8:53 AM UTC

christofd wrote: post #20

imack wrote: post #5

To be fair to the time, in 1999, there was the dot-com bubble going on and a lot of students were going into CS for the wrong reasons so there could have been more at play than government objectives. I suspect there were a lot of CS students who did not enjoy programming in such programs, thus accounting for seniors who couldn't do projects. I know CS and programming are not the same, but I liken it to studying Shake…

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