A degree in literature doesn't teach you how to be a best selling author or a get a job writing tv scripts. On the other hand becoming a good a programmer is much more difficult when you don't understand the fundamental inventions upon which everything else is built. You're limited by what you see in front of you in stack overflow answers and blog posts, with no insight into the why's, only the how's. Self taught programmers that progress beyond simple web pages and crud applications will undoubtedly come across a lot of computer science on their journey. Maybe you don't have to study Milton to be the next Stephen King, but your life will be a lot richer for having done so.
The limited value of a computer science education
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Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#22People don't understand what computer science is. Don't claim you did CS and it didn't teach you to become a developer, that's not what CS is, and I'm surprised that after a bachelor's and master's the author doesn't acknowledge that.
you're surprised someone stupid enough to go BACK to school and get MORE degrees doesn't acknowledge the point of degrees?
#idiot
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone with a computer science degree I can say I've never questioned it being on my companies job postings. But when I think about it I'd rather see a candidate with an excellent github account than a degree.
But that means you're heavily biased against programmers that may be very capable and successful but don't work on open source projects. That reduces the catchment size considerably.
I also agree with the article author to give them a take home project to work on. Just saying that a computer science degree and a 10 min chalk board test are a pretty terrible way to make new hires.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#24People don't understand what computer science is. Don't claim you did CS and it didn't teach you to become a developer, that's not what CS is, and I'm surprised that after a bachelor's and master's the author doesn't acknowledge that.
well, computer science should be MUCH more maths heavy than it is, and software development should be taught as a trade.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#25"However, I also have to acknowledge that the scale and difficulty of the problems I've worked on is unusual compared to the vast majority of programmers"
It's likely that the vast majority of programmers wish they were working on these interesting and difficult problems, but instead they are writing another yet another ETL transform for an ERP system (not that there's no value in that, but that was my job, and it was repetitive and dull)
So even if a Computer Science degree isn't necessary for the vast majority of programming jobs, without that degree, you can only do one of those vast majority of programming jobs, leaving the really interesting problems to those with advanced degrees (or special domain knowledge)
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#26Doing well in a STEM degree like CS or Math is valuable for two reasons: (1) it usually, but not always, implies that the candidate has at least some coding knowledge; and, (2) [most important] it is a good proxy for logical/mathematical intelligence. As long as IQ tests for employment remain a legal grey area, employers will continue using STEM degrees as a filter. The claim that (2) is the most important is anecdot…
That sounds like a round-about way to train, prepare someone for a profession. The CS program is an artifact of how slow universities are to adapt to the needs of a growing industry. I would much rather see software development slip into an apprenticeship program rather than rigged up to a program that was never intended to train engineers.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#27This analogy is really good: > Whether someone can or cannot solve some cute algorithm problem in a high-pressure situation tells you nothing about that person's ability to write solid, clean, well-structured programs in normal working conditions. This practice is akin to hiring pilots based on how they do on an aeronautical engineering exam. That knowledge is relevant and useful but tells you little about the skill…
Is the analogy really that good? A pilot will never be called upon to engineer a plane. Lots of good "hackers" will get stuck if they have to design an algorithm.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#28I may have been lucky, but I don't recognize this statement when I think of my own CS curriculum: The vast majority of what a programmer does, forming good abstractions and avoiding complexity, is almost completely untouched by computer science curriculums. That's the majority of what my CS degree covered, in several different programming paradigms. Even the idea that there are "programming paradigms" is something I…
I went to an Ivy League college with a notable connection to Basic, and I didn't write a line of code for my algorithms and data structures classes, or for my AI class, for that matter. I wrote a metric shit-ton of proofs, though, and I can say with 100% confidence, that that was a complete waste of time.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#29The vast majority of what a programmer does, forming good abstractions and avoiding complexity, is almost completely untouched by computer science curriculums.
It's also almost completely ignored in the typical programming job interview. Which is why when I interview people now I'm most interested in looking at code they've already written, and asking them to break down an application description into a set of data & interface abstractions.
Re: The limited value of a computer science education
#30The value of a computer science degree does not lie in the number of direct applications you will encounter but rather in the school of thought and way of thinking it molds in you. Often, people take for granted how differently you approach problem solving coming from a CS perspective. If anything, I have gained mostly in the ability to break down problems into the smallest pieces possible that work together thus red…
I agree. The problem is the intangibility and the difficulty to estimate the value (by an economic metric) of the degree.
Several careers have a more direct and tangible link degree-value, no one can be a cardiologist or a civil engineer without the degree.
I've a Software Engineering degree but I don't really know if it was worth it, I learned some valuable things but how can I say that I made a good choice with some degree of certainty?