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Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

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Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#31

Post by VLM »

karmelapple wrote: post #15
throwaway5752 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm annoyed by the false dichotomy. I don't agree with you, though. I think the schools should teach theory. Anyone that can learn that theory (algorithms, data structures, computability) should probably be able to be useful without much trouble. That's been my experience with CS interns, at least. edit: I also distinguish between CS and CE. I'd firmly agree with you that CE or other engineering oriented degr…

I'm curious what the "computer science" equivalent in the engineering world would be. All of the engineering majors study a particular type of engineering: mechanical, electrical, computer, construction. There's no "engineering science" program that I'm aware of that would teach the theory behind engineering and award a degree just for that. Instead, the engineering student must understand that way of thinking simult…

Life is simple in chemistry land, without as much doublespeak as in computer land.

In chemistry land, the chemists daydream and theorize and apply massive creativity. The ChemEng implement known ideas as cheaply and safely as possible on huge scale, which turns out to be ridiculously hard. The process techs and lab techs pretty much just follow orders.

Computer engineering is, or used to be, a hybrid of EE and CS. More compiler / assembly work than OO design. More control system theory (PID controllers and the like) than database theory.

There is a modern variant of what CE is, along the engineer is the accountant/project manager of the sciences. And its often called "software engineer". So a project manager who knows programming.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#32

Post by [deleted] »

bicknergseng wrote: post #21

"Do you expect Chemistry students to walk out of school ready to begin work in a lab?" Yes? As someone who didn't major in chemistry or go into a related field... what the hell does someone with a degree in chemistry do when they graduate? Go and work in a coffeeshop? Edit: the original post seems to have been edited several times since my original comment, including the clarification that she's a high school teacher…

[deleted]

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#33

Post by VLM »

na85 wrote: post #26
grecy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They of course don't think of themselves that way; they're "engineers" My Software Engineering degree is accredited by the Australian Institute of Engineers. I am an Engineer.

We have that in Canada too. But in the US you don't need to be accredited to call yourself an engineer.

Its state not federal in the USA.

In Texas you need a P.E. license, or did, anyway, to be an engineer.

It boils down to how much a state legally buys into the P.E. license exams. Some care a lot, some not at all, some have an alternative viewpoint for certification and bonding.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#34

Post by skrebbel »

verelo wrote: post #7

"It is a school’s job to churn out students who will be able to walk into a job in industry on day one and work in whatever language/paradigm is flavour du jour. WRONG! We’re here to teach children the core concepts of Computer Science" Am I the only one ticked off by the "WRONG!" in this post? If you can tell me that it is your job to accept payment yet not create useful people, in my opinion, you're committing some…

> If you can tell me that it is your job to accept payment yet not create useful people, in my opinion, you're committing some form of fraud.

If you really believe that it's a high school's job to "create useful people" then I hope you're not working in education.

> Schools like Waterloo in Canada

That, or you simply didn't bother to even read the article. I'm not Canadian or anything similar, but a part of me suspects that "Waterloo in Canada" isn't a high school. Stop starting flamewars on articles you don't even bother reading introductions of.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#35

Post by snowwrestler »

grecy wrote: post #19
snowwrestler wrote: post #14

It's a great subtle troll that the title refers to professional programmers as "IT professionals." They of course don't think of themselves that way; they're "developers", "engineers", or "hackers." To them, IT is the poor guy installing Adobe Reader on the manager's PC.

They of course don't think of themselves that way; they're "engineers" My Software Engineering degree is accredited by the Australian Institute of Engineers. I am an Engineer.

Is everyone who writes software in Australian similarly accredited? Is there a legal prohibition on calling yourself a "software engineer" in the absence of such credentials?

In the U.S., neither of those are true. I'm curious about how Australia might differ.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#36

Post by snowwrestler »

anorwell wrote: post #17
snowwrestler wrote: post #14

It's a great subtle troll that the title refers to professional programmers as "IT professionals." They of course don't think of themselves that way; they're "developers", "engineers", or "hackers." To them, IT is the poor guy installing Adobe Reader on the manager's PC.

Referring to people who build software as "IT" is a UK thing. The author is from the UK.

Did not know that, thanks.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#37

Post by wmf »

karmelapple wrote: post #30
zxcdw wrote: post #4

I think there's a distinction to be made between Computer Science and Software Engineering as separate disciplines.

Agreed. And therefore, shouldn't the vast majority of people studying Computer Science really change to Software Engineering? If someone wants to work in industry building products that will largely use the infrastructure and architecture built by others (coding in .Net, building web or native apps, etc.), isn't that an engineering problem to solve, rather than a CS / academic problem? Computer Science seems it shoul…

I think a BS in CS plus an MS in SE would be a good path, but then you're telling people that they need six years of school instead of four before they can cash in.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#38

Post by sebular »

bicknergseng wrote: post #21

"Do you expect Chemistry students to walk out of school ready to begin work in a lab?" Yes? As someone who didn't major in chemistry or go into a related field... what the hell does someone with a degree in chemistry do when they graduate? Go and work in a coffeeshop? Edit: the original post seems to have been edited several times since my original comment, including the clarification that she's a high school teacher…

No, they know how to work in a lab because they learned that during the internship they had last summer. In school, they learned Chemistry, but it was the workplace that taught them how to apply that knowledge in a professional setting.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#39

Post by MarcScott »

If any devs here think that educating students in CS is easy and disagree with the author, then there are plenty of opportunities for you to have a go at educating children yourselves.

Initiatives like http://codeclubworld.org/ will allow you to engage with children at the chalk-face. You could inspire the next generation of hackers, rather than just criticising those of us that have chosen to do this as a profession.

Re: Misconceptions that IT professionals seem to have about CS education

#40

Post by bicknergseng »

na85 wrote: post #20
verelo wrote: post #7

"It is a school’s job to churn out students who will be able to walk into a job in industry on day one and work in whatever language/paradigm is flavour du jour. WRONG! We’re here to teach children the core concepts of Computer Science" Am I the only one ticked off by the "WRONG!" in this post? If you can tell me that it is your job to accept payment yet not create useful people, in my opinion, you're committing some…

>If you can tell me that it is your job to accept payment yet not create useful people, in my opinion, you're committing some form of fraud. This is a huge distortion of the point the author is making. The author is not saying "schools should be paid to churn out students that are not useful." The author is saying "schools should be paid to churn out students *already equipped with the skills they will need to learn…

I'm not sure that is a big distortion of what she's saying. It seems to me like she's suggesting that keeping up with modern computer science isn't necessary to teach computer science. With her all caps "WRONG"s, she seems equally incontrovertible. While I don't think teaching iOS8 beta dev is necessary in a modern cs curriculum (which I don't think many people are suggesting), not approaching the massive shift in the industry towards mobile is equally absurd. It's not about mastering every library or IDE or language (which again, the parent comment didn't suggest), but there is certainly no reason that CS fundamentals cannot be taught with a nod towards modern computer science.

Yes, employer expectations are often absurd, but so too is the expectation that teaching Java without ever building an Android app does everything sufficient to "equip students with skills." If a curriculum is going to spend a month on linked lists that's fine, but do something real with them instead of implementing stdlib over and over in a vacuum. Use some popular libraries as teaching tools to demonstrate good and bad code, ways things have been done in real life, etc. Don't pigeonhole on jquery widgets, but build a webapp in rails or node or go or c or jsp or whatever. Hell, build it in Haskell and teach some killer fp at the same time. But don't just spend 4 years teaching students how to implement x to do arbitrary y with no practical examples or connection to real life.

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