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

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

#131

Post by pharrington »

kragen wrote: post #100
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of art or philosophy spans millenia. The effective history of computing spans a lifetime or three. There's no sense comparing the two. In the year 2500 it might make sense to be disappointed that people don't compare current computational practices with things done in 2100 or even 1970, but right now, to call what we have "history" does a disservice to the broad meaning of that term. Another issue: art an…

> Computation has overwhelming dependence on the performance of its physical substrate (by various metrics, including but not limited to: cpu speed, memory size, persistent storage size, persistent storage speed, network bandwidth, network scope, display size, display resolution This was clearly true in 01970, but it's mostly false today. It's still true today for LLMs and, say, photorealistic VR. But what I'm doing…

Reconsider this post after playing with an HDR10 480hz monitor.

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

#132

Post by pjmlp »

motorest wrote: post #120
corysama wrote: post #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 histo…

> 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. Software development/programming is a field where the importance of planning and design lies somewhere between ignored and outright despised. The role of software architect is both ridiculed and vilified, whereas the r…

Depends on the community though.

I see that more from devs in startup culture, or shipping products are sofware only company.

It is a very different mindset when software is not the main business of a company, or in consulting.

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

#133

Post by pjmlp »

d_silin wrote: post #11

"CSCI 4020: Writing Fast Code in Slow Languages" does exist, at least in the book form. Teach algorithmic complexity theory in slowest possible language like VB or Ruby. Then demonstrate how O(N) in Ruby trumps O(N^2) in C++.

VB is actually quite fast since VB 6, but your point stands.

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

#134

Post by pjmlp »

LPisGood wrote: post #33
d_silin wrote: post #11

"CSCI 4020: Writing Fast Code in Slow Languages" does exist, at least in the book form. Teach algorithmic complexity theory in slowest possible language like VB or Ruby. Then demonstrate how O(N) in Ruby trumps O(N^2) in C++.

Python has come along way. It’s never gonna win for something like high-frequency trading, but it will be super competitive in areas you wouldn’t expect.

It could be much better if most folks used PyPy instead of CPython as favourite implementation.

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

#135

Post by pjmlp »

qwertytyyuu wrote: post #111

Functional programming exists in any reputable computer science course. Standard is haskel, For a true "unlearning" it might need to be a third or forth year subject

On my day it was actually a mix of Miranda, Caml Light, Lisp, with Tarski's World and Prolog for FP.

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

#136

Post by Bigpet »

TZubiri wrote: post #20

>CSCI 2100: Unlearning Object-Oriented Programming Discover how to create and use variables that aren't inside of an object hierarchy. Learn about "functions," which are like methods but more generally useful. Prerequisite: Any course that used the term "abstract base class." This is just a common meme that often comes from ignorance, or a strawman of what OOP is. >CSCI 4020: Writing Fast Code in Slow Languages Analy…

> Python is heavily OOP, everything is an object in python for example.

I strongly disagree. How is everything being called an object in any way "heavily OOP"? OOP is not just "I organize my stuff into objects".

You can write OOP code with python but most python code I've seen is not organized around OOP principles.

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

#137

Post by lexicality »

omosubi wrote: post #45

I would add debugging as a course. Maybe they should teach this but how to dive deep into figuring out how to learn the root cause of defects and various tools would have been enormously helpful for me. Perhaps this already exists

Along with a course on how to read other people's code and how to resist the urge to tear down Chesterton's fence while you fix bugs

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

#138

Post by lexicality »

epalm wrote: 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?

My uni kind of had that course! They just didn't tell us what it was going to be ahead of time and it was horrendous. We all absolutely hated the professor but it was required to graduate so we all came up with various coping strategies and at the very end he said "congratulations this is what the real world is like!"

(I didn't believe him at the time, but in some ways he really didn't go far enough...)

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

#140

Post by zkmon »

> CSCI 2100: Unlearning Object-Oriented Programming??

People in tech industry, seem to have no idea how the systems in the wild work. Enterprise Java runs the backbone of operations for all of large business organisations such as banks. It is just as grounded as MS Office is. It is object-oriented software that is running the bulk of production environments of the world. Who is going to maintain these systems for the next few decades?

And in reality, there is nothing wrong with Java or object orientation. It has the best battle-tested and rich ecosystem to build enterprise systems. It mirrors the business entities and a natural hierarchy and evolution of things. It has vast pool of skilled resources and easy to maintain. Python is still a baby when it comes operational readiness and integrations. You might get excited about Jupyter cells and REPL, but that is all a dev-play, not production.

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