>one of the most pressing problems that humanity has today is obtaining clean drinking water. Yet no university has a Department of Water.
He made some interesting points, but this just sounds crazy.
More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
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Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#32>one of the most pressing problems that humanity has today is obtaining clean drinking water. Yet no university has a Department of Water. He made some interesting points, but this just sounds crazy.
Also, the University of Arizona does have a Department of Hydrology and Water Resources: http://www.hwr.arizona.edu/about-department
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#33I have a CS degree, and worse than that, it's a double major in CS and applied math. I had to study things that seem really pointless for an "applied software engineer", like differential equations or numerical methods (ok, maybe the latter is not so pointless). We also studied a considerable chunk of other, more "CS-esque" stuff, like introduction to mathematical logic, computability theory, lambda calculus. Does th…
Newbies also learn a new approach to problem solving in a summer internship at a major software company too. The internship is also MUCH cheaper than four years learning theory.
Of course, you could always take a script kiddie job at a minor software company. Those wouldn't be fulfilling to anyone anyway, and those are the jobs that exhaust you and make you feel like they are "eating up" your time, instead of being a productive use of your time.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#34I think you're missing the entire point of what a Computer Science program is. It's not to teach programming. It's to teach computing theory, algorithm design, etc. That's the reason that the top-level university programs are so heavy on theory. That just happens to fit with systems programmers(who somehow aren't software engineers... curious). It also fits with game programmers, which is where I think a lot of CS st…
did you actually read the post? i actually pre-rebutted both of your arguments. i understand quite well what a CS program is, since (as i pointed out in the post) i've been a student in three university CS programs and taught coding at a fourth. i'm saying that most of what goes on in academic CS departments is not what we need as a society and it's not what most undergrads hope to get into when they enroll. most und…
> most undergrads get into CS to write software, not to learn "theory" or "compiler design"
The flip side is also that an undergraduate enrolls into a CS class, discovers (so it's not their bag before enrollment) that "compiler design" is far more exciting and intelectually challenging than developing typical business/CRUD apps, only to find out after graduation that such jobs barely exist. Yes, let's dispense with academic CS departments.
Maybe the message you tried to convey is that attending mediocre CS courses is much worse than attending good SE courses. That I agree with, but I do not agree that SE should be totally devoid of theory.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe try this introduction to web publishing with wordpress [1]. Google cache of the blog post: Also, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://... [1] http://codelesson.com/courses/view/introduction-to-web-publi...
the issue has to do with apache and my cheap-ass underpowered personal server, not wordpress. but gracias for the link!
Server has been migrated to WPEngine, which I am now deeply in love with.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#36Cherry picking applied software engineering (and glancing over your curriculum, specifically web programming/app development) as the only modern relevant subset of computer science seems a bit dramatic. I personally don't really care how/where people learn how to code, and like you, I don't care much for the "priesthood of the technologist" I see so often in our industry.
But so confidently suggesting that ".. academic CS departments is not what we need as a society" is no different "cargo-cult" thinking than the poster who suggested that many don't take vocational training seriously. You are blogging about and representing a vocational training service, obviously the readers on HN are going to be skeptical.
Choosing the path of academia in education and as a career is a perfectly valid and respectable choice. Suggesting that the works of groups like the ACM, IEEE are not addressing real societal problem is pretty harsh, regardless of how elitist they may or may not be, and regardless of whether those individuals are making a significant contribution to society or not. There's no need to shit on smart and passionate people in specialized / esoteric fields in computer science simply because their work can't be easily app'ified or conjured into an mvp (http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/, http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ravin/ ...)
I studied computer science in my undergrad. I didn't go to learn how to code nor did I expect my university to teach me how to code, I already knew how to do that. Many of my friends discovered a passion for CS because of their overlapping math/logic/theory breadth courses, not despite it. Assuming the typical CS student is someone who only enrolls to learn things like applied programming grossly oversimplifies and generalizes a person's intentions and motivations for learning, even though I'm sure there are many with that primary motivation.
Online/alternative learning programs, like your company, are a great approach on education which have lived happily in parallel with universities for years. It's not a replacement though, it is an alternative. I don't think the shortcomings in some universities warrant the "academic butchering" as suggested so boldly in the post's title. To suggest that we should start systematically shutting down CS departments simply because their current curriculum doesn't produce good programmers in a way that aligns with your model/curriculum, is a scary and dangerous thought. When you take away university departments, you chop the legs off entire disciplines.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they should be teaching that at all. It's a bigger waste of time than teaching differential equations. At least diff. equations are there forever and might one day come in handy if you end up writing some software for modeling physical processes. Ruby, on the other hand, will be replaced by some other trendy language in a few years. Plus, if you already know a couple of programming languages with differ…
This isn't about whatever language is the flavor of the month, although seeing universities teach a language that is less than 20 years old would be nice. It's more about CS programs that produce graduates who have no practical ability to code at all , in any language.
What makes you think coding proficiency is the goal of a university or a CS program, or the proper goal thereof.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem with your position is that what you are proposing does not require a 4 year degree. I think a 6 month to one year vocational program would be of more advantage to a student than a 4 year degree in what amounts to a vocational education. The problem with this, is that no one respects a vocational education and no one views it as a competent replacement for a 4 year degree (even if the student is better prep…
i agree that what i am proposing does not require a 4-year degree. i don't think that most undergraduates should spend four years in school. "no one respects a vocational education" is cargo cult thinking. elite universities don't write world-changing software, educated, motivated people do. i come not to butcher academia. as one of the least reformable institutions in our society, i'm pretty much indifferent to acad…
Oh, an industry supremacist.
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#39I think you're missing the entire point of what a Computer Science program is. It's not to teach programming. It's to teach computing theory, algorithm design, etc. That's the reason that the top-level university programs are so heavy on theory. That just happens to fit with systems programmers(who somehow aren't software engineers... curious). It also fits with game programmers, which is where I think a lot of CS st…
did you actually read the post? i actually pre-rebutted both of your arguments. i understand quite well what a CS program is, since (as i pointed out in the post) i've been a student in three university CS programs and taught coding at a fourth. i'm saying that most of what goes on in academic CS departments is not what we need as a society and it's not what most undergrads hope to get into when they enroll. most und…
Interesting side discussion.
I do thing cube123 read your post, and I do think a valid conclusion from reading your post is that you have missed the point of what a CS program is.
I suspect that this comes from your own history, and part from the way in which CS 'grew up' as a discipline.
The point of your posting is that being employed as a programmer, and learning programming is not what a Computer Science degree is about. Try getting an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, its similar in that you have lots of theory on lots of things but little practical experience.
The leap you make which causes me to discard your argument is this one, "but this isn't really about you, it's about the mismatch between what university CS programs do and what people and society really want or need." You have taken on the role of speaking for society and yet you haven't successfully made a case that you can accurately represent what society wants.
You can make an argument that there is a need for a training program between high school and employment that teaches people how to write programs to solve problems. You can call that Computer Engineering, Applied Programming, Programming Technology, what ever. Such programs exist, both in the 'for profit' University world and elsewhere. You can argue that such programs should be structured more along the various processes for producing reliable, testable code, and you do some of that in your education project (always great to put your money where your mouth is like that).
But the opportunity to teach folks who 'just want to code' does not disqualify CS as being a valid course of study, just like 'Accounting' doesn't disqualify 'Mathematics' as a course of study. So your central thesis that 'more universities should shut down their CS programs' fails the 'sniff' test.
Now if you said 'More universities should offer applied programming type degrees' and used your points about how it is what many people want to do. That is a reasonable conversation to have, do we want to elevate what have been things like ITT Technical College programs into a more general purpose degree program? Something between 'JavaSchool' and 'CS' ? I can see arguments for and against.
But if you are going to blurt out things like "Most undergraduates and professional actually want to learn applied software engineering, not 'computer science'" you really should try to develop some foundation for that claim. What evidence do you offer that this claim is valid? Some study on college exit exams, some survey of recent CS graduates? A self selecting poll on Reddit? Its all well and good to wonder if most folks just want to code, but to use it as a claim in your argument that Universities should restructure their CS programs, and expecting your readers to 'buy in' to that requires that you provide some basis for making that claim.
Your post makes a bunch of claims, four of them in big bold font, for which your provide no supporting evidence or structure at all around why the reader should believe them. Because of that your message is lost.
I agree with you that it is an interesting topic and as we've moved 'programming' into a more general skill requirement based on the explosion of 'programmable' devices, you might be more successful making the argument that we need to offer a better high school programming class. (much like Typing was offered in the 70's as a way to provide a generally useful skill to High School students).
Re: More Universities Should Shut Down Their Computer Science Programs
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
did you actually read the post? i actually pre-rebutted both of your arguments. i understand quite well what a CS program is, since (as i pointed out in the post) i've been a student in three university CS programs and taught coding at a fourth. i'm saying that most of what goes on in academic CS departments is not what we need as a society and it's not what most undergrads hope to get into when they enroll. most und…
Interesting side discussion. I do thing cube123 read your post, and I do think a valid conclusion from reading your post is that you have missed the point of what a CS program is. I suspect that this comes from your own history, and part from the way in which CS 'grew up' as a discipline. The point of your posting is that being employed as a programmer, and learning programming is not what a Computer Science degree i…
Just a terminology note: 'Computer Engineering' is already existing term for the discipline of making computers -- designing CPUs and building hardware in general (our CE has strong security focus, so they do lot of RFID ASIC stuff, and some FPGA crypto stuff) and low level programming like compiler backends (SPARC register windows are pretty!), microcontrollers and interfacing with other hardware too. And whatever Hennessy and Patterson are doing.
So you shouldn't name gutted code monkey courses Computer Engineering :)