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Convincing Colleges to Upgrade Their Classes?
Pray_4_Mojo asks: "I'm an engineering student at the University of Pittsburgh, and I'm currently taking a required class known as 'Computer Interfacing'. While I enjoy the instructor, I find most of the material to be severely dated. We will spend the majority of the class covering RS232/XMODEM/Token Ring means of computer-to-computer communication. Almost no mention of USB, Firewire, or IRDa is made within the class. I am trying to convince my professor that this material is relevant, as these types of interfaces will be dominate in the world we future grads will be working in. As an example, I demonstrated that the keycard access system to gain access to the Interfacing Lab has a USB port for data download/firmware programming. The professor seems interested, but it seems that I need to convince the department to revise the course requirements. Has anyone attempted to modernize their CS/Engineering program and met with success?"
No.
USB and Firewire are vastly different from EIA-232 and siblings.
USB is much closer to Ethernet than it is to EIA-232. I've done some serial development and some USB development, and the USB development is abstracted from hardware by several layers; while serial is barely abstracted by one layer (in microcontrollers, if you're lucky to get a UART).
It really is different. I would agree that students would benefit from learning more modern interfaces later on, though EIA-232 is perfect for teaching basic communications concepts. I certainly had difficulty the first time I developed a USB peripheral; it had never been taught, if barely mentioned at all.
It makes sense now. The abstraction almost makes it easier to develop for on the PC side, and there are amazing features built right into the protocol. A simple microcontroller can change from a keyboard, to a mouse, to a joystick, or dozens of other devices with a simple change in firmware.
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Then you don't understand what a CS degree is good for.
.... stuff that isn't "practical", but that theory means the world to you later on ...
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My suggestion: Go to Chubb.
If you start thinking in the "That's not practical, who cares" mode, you belong in a trade school.
Sorry, I know that's not very politically correct, but it's the TRUTH.
Now, if you want to learn real computer SCIENCE, stick it out.
Learning assembly language for a theoretical computer is a great exercise -- you have to actually exercise that mush between your ears!
My favorite class in CS was Theory of Digital Machines.... designing AND, OR, NOT gates, building some theoretical microprocessors
Again, if you want practical, go to Chubb. If you want to learn something, stick it out
--NBVB