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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)

#151

Post by kkfx »

znpy wrote: post #142
globular-toast wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks as an example of "getting things done" is laughable. Real industry gets things done: manufacturing, construction, healthcare etc. We could do without the massive leech that is the finance sector.

I still get my monthly salary via wire transfers, no issues… banks do get things done.

With so many issues and costs that people buy stablecoins to exchange money with smart-contracts that have no substantial guarantee other than the issuer's right to block funds...

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

#152

Post by kragen »

nine_k wrote: post #77
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++.

One of my childhood books compared bubble sort implemented in FORTRAN and running on a Cray-1 and quicksort implemented in BASIC and running on TRS-80. The BASIC implementation started to outrun the supercomputer at some surprisingly pedestrian array sizes. I was properly impressed.

To be fair, the standard bubble sort algorithm isn't vectorized, and so can only use about 5% of the power of a Cray-1. Which is good for another factor of about 5 in the array size.

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

#153

Post by kkfx »

What's really missing is:

- a basic computer science course, teaching how to be at home in a FLOSS desktop system

- an intermediate course teaching how to properly automate this environment, from scripting to classic development

- a basic course in networking and system management to reach the level of being able to be a dummy sysadmin at home

all of these must be preparatory to CS because without them it's like studying literature before knowing the basics of the language in which it's written. So far, it's assumed that students do it themselves, but the facts prove that this is not the case.

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

#154

Post by austin-cheney »

I would add:

PSYC 2230: Measuring Things - Gathering evidence, overcoming bias, and comparative analysis.

Most developers cannot measure things at any level, in any regard.

CSCI 5540: Transmission Control - Comparative analysis of existing data transfer protocols, to include practical application, as well as authoring new and original protocols

Most developers don’t know how any transmission protocols work internally, except possibly HTTP

CSCI 3204: Tree Traversal - Data structure analysis applied to data model hierarchies and taxonomies

I have heard from so many developers who say they spend most of their education on data structure analysis but in the real world cannot apply it against tree models in practical application on any level. The people in library sciences figure this out in the real world but not educated software developers.

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

#155

Post by dominicrose »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #103

Unlearning object oriented programming I think OOP became popular because it feels profound when you first grasp it. There is that euphoric moment when all the abstractions suddenly interlock, when inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation seem to dance together in perfect logic. It feels like you have entered a secret order of thinkers who understand something hidden. Each design pattern becomes a small enlighten…

There's a video from Gary Bernhardt called Functional Core, Imperative Shell which made sense to me. These paradigms can work well together. OOP can be great too, the Ruby language is deeply OO and the core library is rich and OO. You can also only use hashes and arrays and type them with Typescript, using functions, types and namespaces and duck-typing, instead of classes and methods.

ps: closures are worth thinking about, we use them without even thinking about it

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

#156

Post by kragen »

epolanski wrote: post #129

Jm2c but people tend to conflate two overlapping but different fields. CS is the study of computation, SE is the study of building computer programs. Those overlap in the same way physics and chemistry do. Of course the two overlap and chemist's are also exposed to classical and quantum physics and know about Dirac spaces or Born-Oppenheimer equations. But the bulk and core of a chemist curriculum will involve few of…

"Software engineering" is the political ideology that the study of management practices can enable you to deliver a successful software project without learning how to program. It is very popular in fields where a software project can be considered successful without ever delivering usable software, such as cost-plus defense contracting, management consulting, and enterprise software.

If you want to know how to build computer programs, then learn the type system of your chosen language, and learn how to reason about the behavior of sequences, loops, and conditionals—even if you do it informally or with small-step operational semantics instead of Hoare logic, and even if your language doesn't have type inference. Don't listen to the comforting lies of "Software Engineering" promising easy shortcuts. There is no royal road to Geometry, and there is no royal road to Google. Git gud.

But it is also true that there is a great deal that you could learn about computer science that you do not need to write working software, fast. Sequential search is often fast enough. Simple hash tables are usually better than fancy balanced trees. You will probably never use a computer that uses one's complement or the network stack the OSI model describes. If you have an array to sort, you should probably use a sorting function from the system library and definitely not implement bubble sort from scratch. Or even Quicksort. You can program in Erlang or Java for decades without having to understand how the garbage collector works.

There are some good posts on the blog that do a good job of explaining: https://prog21.dadgum.com/177.html https://prog21.dadgum.com/87.html

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

#157

Post by tornadofart »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #103

Unlearning object oriented programming I think OOP became popular because it feels profound when you first grasp it. There is that euphoric moment when all the abstractions suddenly interlock, when inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation seem to dance together in perfect logic. It feels like you have entered a secret order of thinkers who understand something hidden. Each design pattern becomes a small enlighten…

OOP and FP are in theory orthogonal principles. Maybe I'm too much of a pragmatic and purists might scoff at me, but I use and appreciate both.

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

#158

Post by [deleted] »

zkmon wrote: post #140

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#159

Post by klez »

kunley wrote: post #126
kragen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

One question, why are you prepending zero to every single year?

Usually it's because of an initiative by the Long Now Foundation that is supposed, among other things, to raise awareness about their 10,000 years clock and what it stands for.

See https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-an...

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

#160

Post by kakacik »

kragen wrote: post #149
zkmon wrote: post #140

> 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…

If you think programmers should defer to bank managers on what the best way to design software is, do you also think that bank managers should defer to plumbers on what the best way to manage liquidity is?

Its not bank managers but IT managers choosing somewhat the tech stack, rest is inertia and things working. Bank managers dont give a fuck in same way they couldnt care less what plumbing material is used in their buildings. They care about long term stability, as they should. Same is true for almost any business outside SV.

Parent is correct, been doing this my entire (profitable to the absolute limit) career and will most probably retire doing same. You clearly seem to lack any expertise in field discussed.

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