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The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

missing.csail.mit.edu

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Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#71

Post by barnacs »

Hendrikto wrote: post #4

Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly. git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` an…

I don't think using git should necessarily be taught as a part of a CS education. Any self respecting engineer will be capable and have the curiosity and motivation to dig into it on their own. CS should give them the prereqs to do so, such as hashing, graphs, trees, etc.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#72

Post by Throaway1982 »

tovej wrote: post #69
Throaway1982 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

modern instruments are actually improved designs of older instruments which were just that: badly-designed & hard to use

Modern instruments are still difficult to use unless you spend time learning how to. Just like git.

No they're easy to use. They're hard to master. Git is hard to figure out how to even upload to.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#73

Post by [deleted] »

xml wrote: post #27
Hendrikto wrote: post #4

Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly. git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` an…

If most people are not using a tool properly, it is not their fault; it is the tool's fault. Git is better than what came before, and it might be the best at what it does, but that does not mean that it is good. - The interface is unintuitive. - Jargon is everywhere. - Feature discoverability is bad. - Once something goes wrong, it is often more difficult to recover. If you're not familiar enough with Git to get your…

[deleted]

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#74

Post by intended »

xml wrote: post #27
Hendrikto wrote: post #4

Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly. git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` an…

If most people are not using a tool properly, it is not their fault; it is the tool's fault. Git is better than what came before, and it might be the best at what it does, but that does not mean that it is good. - The interface is unintuitive. - Jargon is everywhere. - Feature discoverability is bad. - Once something goes wrong, it is often more difficult to recover. If you're not familiar enough with Git to get your…

For UI/UX arguments on professional grade software, I present the Bloomberg terminal. A fever dream in shades of orange, black and blue.

For professional work, people can and do learn complex interfaces and jargon, if it is advantageous.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#75

Post by jayd16 »

Cerium wrote: post #33
dmurray wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think students in 2026 need any encouragement to use LLMs, but sure, it would be strange if the LLM companies didn't give away student plans cheaply.

I don't see the lock in effect (such as learning a language, or a complex software product) with LLMs yet that would drive student based marketing efforts.

That means you need more marketing. Coke isn't popular because of lock in.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#76

Post by dpc050505 »

cameronh90 wrote: post #36
xml wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If most people are not using a tool properly, it is not their fault; it is the tool's fault. Git is better than what came before, and it might be the best at what it does, but that does not mean that it is good. - The interface is unintuitive. - Jargon is everywhere. - Feature discoverability is bad. - Once something goes wrong, it is often more difficult to recover. If you're not familiar enough with Git to get your…

> If most people are not using a tool properly, it is not their fault; it is the tool's fault. This is a standard that we don't apply to most other tools outside of IT. I do think git could be more usable, but most powerful tools have sharp edges and require training. A bandsaw is a fantastic tool, but if you try to use one without reading about it first, you'll end up losing a finger. I'm not sure I'd blame the band…

Contemporary bandsaws used by people who take workplace safety seriously have emergency brakes for just that reason (countless trained operators also lost fingers). Improving tools is something we've been doing since our ancestors first held a branch. If we satisfied ourselves with good enough we'd live much different lives.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#78

Post by 1718627440 »

xml wrote: post #27
Hendrikto wrote: post #4

Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly. git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` an…

If most people are not using a tool properly, it is not their fault; it is the tool's fault. Git is better than what came before, and it might be the best at what it does, but that does not mean that it is good. - The interface is unintuitive. - Jargon is everywhere. - Feature discoverability is bad. - Once something goes wrong, it is often more difficult to recover. If you're not familiar enough with Git to get your…

The hardest thing to get people to, is to think of a evolution of their codebase as opposed to just a single state with a sophisticated backup system. Writing proper commit messages and diffs follows from that. The actual Git commands are then incidentally.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#79

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Hendrikto wrote: post #4

Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly. git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` an…

Version control isn't the only thing like that (though it might be the most important). They ought to have some familiarity with the idea of a bug database, for example. A requirements database (a software engineer could go through their entire career without having to ever touch one, but they should be familiar with the idea).

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026

#80

Post by 9dev »

HelloNurse wrote: post #56
npinsker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels harsh. Engineers have an endless list of other things to learn that are arguably more important, and it isn’t always worth understanding all the weird edge cases that almost never pop up (to say nothing of Git’s hostile, labyrinthine UX that one would have to deal with).

What things to learn are more important for "engineers" than using VC messages and history for communicating adequately (including communicating with themselves in the future) and using VC merging, staging etc. to put source code in a good state that they intend to build, share and archive? Irreproducible or incomprehensible work is worse than nothing.

That’s akin to saying the most important thing for an author is to use a word professor correctly.
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