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Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

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Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#41
post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

Yes. I often explained that CS was more like a math degree than an engineering degree.

Having attended Waterloo, this isn't very surprising at all. The CS department is part of the Math Faculty.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#42
post #17
post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering if people who treat colleges and universities as though their job is worker training are confused, or if I'm naive in believing colleges and universities exist to expand human knowledge through research and education. I suspect the answer is that our culture is confused, we want people who are smart and well rounded to also be useful. And the ugly side of it is, we wa…

People aren't confused. Colleges do many things.

They're also very expensive to attend, and the most immediate value they offer is to get people jobs

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#44
post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

welp, we could really use some vocational schools.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#45
post #40

Especially after reading the comments on this thread, I'm really not sure HN is a good venue for discussing tweet streams. I think if Patrick wanted to write something that would spark a discussion on HN, he'd have written a blog post.

I for one had no idea this was not a blog post.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#46
post #40

Especially after reading the comments on this thread, I'm really not sure HN is a good venue for discussing tweet streams. I think if Patrick wanted to write something that would spark a discussion on HN, he'd have written a blog post.

Are you sure HN is a good venue for discussing anything?

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#47
This should be titled "Condensed snippets of accumulated wisdom, focusing mostly on software and business, that I am fairly confident of and feel compelled to share with you".

Many of these nuggets are not "obvious", for any conventional understanding of that word.

That said, I enjoyed the post, and liked the concise format.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#48
post #27

>Companies find it incredibly hard to reliably staff positions with hard-working generalists who operate autonomously and have high risk tolerances. This is not the modal employee, including at places which are justifiably proud of the skill/diligence/etc of their employees. I'm not sure if he's saying these hard-working generalists are hard to find, or undesirable to employ?

I'm also confused. What's a "mod a l employee"?

I believe it's a typo, should be "model" employee.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#49
post #17
post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering if people who treat colleges and universities as though their job is worker training are confused, or if I'm naive in believing colleges and universities exist to expand human knowledge through research and education. I suspect the answer is that our culture is confused, we want people who are smart and well rounded to also be useful. And the ugly side of it is, we wa…

> One would never refer to law school or medical school as "vocational".

Sure you would. They are 100% vocational schools. Their cost, acceptance rates, time commitment, and difficulty level may be higher than other vocational schools, but that doesn't change what they are -- 100% focused on giving you the knowledge and skills to do a specific job.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#50
post #17
post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering if people who treat colleges and universities as though their job is worker training are confused, or if I'm naive in believing colleges and universities exist to expand human knowledge through research and education. I suspect the answer is that our culture is confused, we want people who are smart and well rounded to also be useful. And the ugly side of it is, we wa…

> And the ugly side of it is, we want clear class divisions.

What? I suspect that it's typically, if not exclusively, those in the upper classes that want this. The ugly side of it is human nature is selfish.

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