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Computer Science Curriculum in College
Ludwig Feuerbach writes "As it's back to school for university students, including Computer Science undergraduates like myself, I look at my course schedule for this semester and I have courses with titles like: Theory of Computation, Numerical Analysis, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and History of Economics from Plato to Keynes. The first 4 courses are required in my CS program. I had thought nothing of it until I read an opinion piece by Dan Zambonini, who stresses the type of courses I'm taking are, essentially, useless for getting a job. He lists several CS courses useful for a job. Is he right? I tend to think that an university education should stress scientific topics over vocational ones, but since I'm just planning to get a job after I grad, am I in the right program?"
for a job, then go into CIS.
it is oriented at getting the student to learn how to use computer systems found in business, how to create tools for those systems and how to manage and build on those systems.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The types of classes you prefer will depend, essentially, on what you see as the purpose of a higher ed degree or some would even argue the purpose of an education. Some would argue that it is to prepare you for a job through the acculumation of a set of skills or a knowlege set. Others would argue that it is to prepare you for a lifetime of learning. In this day and age, odds are unless you're in a position where you can call in rich, you'll take more than one career zig or zag in your lifetime. Yet another group are those that see the purpose as a mixture of both. In the end, your choice as to the purpose of education should be one of the fundamental questions you get a personal grasp on before you even apply to an institution of higher learning.
Sometimes the stuff you learn there seems completely and utterly unimportant for day to day usage. Still, often you suddenly get into a situation where no other non-CS guy can't find a certain bug because they lack the understanding of the background. I've been in the stuation myself where I was able to fix a bug that resulted out of the use of floating-point numbers. The guy that implemented the routine just didn't know about the mathematical boundaries of floating point numbers. It's just an example...
If you just want to become a programmer, just follow some evening courses... That's all you need... Programming isn't all that hard, but don't come complaining to me because the sorting routine you wrote is too slow and don't know why.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
A degree is an academic certification and as such it should not cover topics simply because they're trendy in CS related jobs at the moment. It should teach a curriculum that gives CS students a good background in a wide range of topics and above all else it should be interesting and set up a good basis for more advanced academic training.
It is not surprising that sometimes what is good course academically is not necessarily a good course from a business standpoint. As a professional programmer I think that CS graduates are typically no better than someone with no degree at all. I understand that this is a pretty damning thing to say considering the majority of slashdotters probably have a CS degree but in reality the CS degree gives you nothing in terms the ability to write good code.
In fact, a CS degree typically makes for a more dangerous coder due to their belief that the few programing projects they did on their course makes them a professional programmer. It also trains the wrong instincts. Academic coding is about producing beautiful programs - business coding is about being pragmatic. Often they have a hard time rejecting these academic instincts.
I liken programming to playing chess. Anybody can learn the game in a day but to become a master takes dedication, a willingness to learn and a lot of time. I've stressed the "lot of time" point because I think this is a key problem with CS students. You get the typical line out of them at an interview "I didn't learn C# in Comp Science but I could learn it in an afternoon.." I'm a young guy (22) and I've been programing professionally for nearly four years and I can tell you that this is simply false. Make no mistake about it, I'm still no coding grand-master and probably wont be for another ten years. When somebody says that they can learn a language in an afternoon it doesn't make me think they're lying, it just makes it blatantly obvious how ignorant they are of intricacies of writing code.
In conclusion.. I think that having a CS degree is no real advantage over having a physics, chemistry or maths degree. What a degree shows you is the person in-front of you applied themselves to a long term project and got a result. The same conclusion can be drawn from a person sat across from me without a degree but three years of experience. Really, both routes are equally valid and I hold neither higher than the other.
Simon.
The classes you have to take are required for the degree, and the degree is very important. On the other hand, some people have great success just learning how to program on their own.
I'd say there are more successful people in the programming world with degrees than without, though, so I'd stick with the courses your college requires.
If you really want to stand out when you're looking for a job, use your spare time to write a well-designed app that you can show to potential employers.
You are learning to think critically and hone problem solving skills. CS is not computer programming alone. The biggest problem in computer design is and always will be applying the best solution to a problem within the constraints allowed.
I stopped university and got a 'lower' but much more practical degree. This actually meant I was on the market sooner, and by the time I would have gotten my university degree, I was making the same amount of money as somebody who gets out of university.
And guess what? I already had work experience...
University is something you (should) do for the love of science, not for just getting a job.
Mike
I use to be proud of the fact that I held a CS degree, but that changed when CS became more about job training than a science. If you want a real CS degree, then become a math major.
This seems like a common question. There will be plenty of people who think that college should provide vocational training and plenty more who think that college should teach you "how to think independently".
I'm personally more in the second camp. I think that there are vocational schools for those who want to learn the vocation, but those skills will need to be constantly updated. I think that what you learn in college (as opposed to vocational schools) should be applicable to more fields than just the one that you learn and that you should be able to apply the lessons beyond what the curriculum specifically teaches.
Essentially, if you want to learn the theory of how databases work and know how to write a database you're taking the right sort of classes. If you're wanting to become a DBA, you should really go to a vocational school.
I don't know about American Universities but here in Germany the theoretical courses are the only ones that have long-time-useful information. The practical courses focus mostly on technologies that will be outdated when I leave college. They also usually focus on details that won't stick in my head after the test because they are easily re-discoverable via Google. The theoretical courses are the ones that enable me to read about new stuff and actually understanding what it does as they are the timeless background for all of CS.
Linux is not Windows
I wouldn't worry, though, as most everyone else is going to be coming from this "wrong" program as well.
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
I've been a software development manager for a long time and I've hired a lot of people. Fundamental development skills are essential. This includes knowledge of data structures, algorithms, C/C++ and another 'major' language (c/C++ is a must have), a basic understanding of micro processor archithecture (this means some ability to debug in assembly, at least a little), good written and verbal communication skills (e.g. can you write a decent bug report?, can you lead a decent code walkthrough?). Funcatinal knowledge of operating system fundamentals such as memory management, scheduling, I/O (Syncronous, async), and networked I/O (TCP/IP) are also important. Again, I don't expect folks to be able to write a kernel, but they do need to at least be able to use more than one thread to do I/O or handle UI while doing something else, or open a socket and do a little client/server work. Note that economics isn' bad, but it should be micro, not macro. Even entry level devs need to have some inkling of business trade offs.
Jibe!
Once you're working you'll realize that getting the job isn't where you stop setting goals. You'll want to do a good job and make insightful decisions. You'll learn that you want to contribute to the field that you're working in, beyond hacking out whatever the business tells you to. You'll want to contribute to society. For these things, the better your understanding of your field and the world, the better you'll do - that's why you're going to university.
Now, you can do all of these things without university, but you've got to be very driven and interested in what you're doing. Interest and ambition to contribute more than just labor is the biggest factor in my experience. Jesus isn't remembered for being a carpenter. Ghandi's not remembered for being a lawyer.
you had me until it came to the part about learning a new language. I am sorry, but once you know how to program, learning a new syntax, especially one that is so close to one that most CS students have had experience with, is easy to do.
yes, you still need to learn the library but the language is trivial.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
In the decades of your career you'll work on totally different subjects and will have to learn new programming languages and techniques. Knowing how to learn these "new tricks" is what distinguishes an educated person from a trained one.
Learning theory while using "academic" languages, which nobody uses in "real life" will be very useful... You will be able to pick practical things up quicker and there will be no shortage of that later in life.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not at all. You don't goto a University to learn about things that will nescisarily help you in the real world. You learn how to THINK. My computer science degree didn't directly teach me anything I needed to use in the real world, however, it did teach me how to THINK like a computer scientist. And the math part of the curriculum has paid dividends. The only people I ever really saying that a CS degree is worthless are the ones that don't have one.
I disagree with you on the point that you can't learn a language in an afteroon. Every programming langauge has its own set of syntax rules and functions. You can take an afternono and learn the basic syntax of the language, memorize a couple of the functions that you will use often, and find the best resources for help about the language. After that, your learning process will be just learning as you code. You said yourself it's going to be another 10 years before you would consider yourself really good at it. You aren't going to get there by just sitting and examining tutorials. You learn it by actually programming it and doing google searches / resource searches every time you come across something you need a tip on.
So while learning it in an afternoon won't make you a killer coder right away, it is enough time to set you up to be able to code just about any app and learn as you go. If you already know other langauges, then it will be fairly easy to apply the rules of good clean coding to this new language as you go.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
If you don't know what computer science is, then you're lost already. Studying the science of computers means you are going into a field of science dealing with the fundamentals of computers. No, it doesn't translate into a typical job, but it can be used for lots of jobs. CS plus other practical classes can give you an incredible edge. If you are trying for just getting a job, stay out of CS. In fact, PLEASE stay out of CS if that is all you want. CS is being deluted by that kind of attitude. A computer scientist advances computer theory and ideas, not just their paycheck.
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
>I tend to think that an university education should stress scientific topics over vocational ones
I'm glad people like you still exist... you wouldn't believe the number of students who whine to me that computer science courses are "useless". They want courses like "How to program for Windows XP" and "How to install network drivers"....
The analogy isn't quite apt, but I'll use it anyways: taking a computer science degree to become a line programmer is liking taking a physics degree to learn how to operate a microwave oven.
Again, not apt (much hyperbolized, in fact), but you see my point. Computer science is supposed to be about _science_... it's not a how-to-program course. Programming just happens to be one of the tools computer scientists use (just as some physicists use microwave emitters in their research).
Honestly though, a CS degree _will_ give you an excellent foundation from which to learn job-specific skills. Once you understand programming languages and algorithms on an abstract level, it should be a piece of cake to learn "trendy new programming language #37" when your employer requires it.
The notion that someone should be calling themselves a "software engineer" while not understanding the Church-Turing thesis is absolutely horrifying. There are very real mathematical limits to what can be accomplished with computing... and some surprisingly simple tasks simply aren't computable, ever. Any serious programmer should know how to identify when they may have been asked to do something that is provably mathematically impossible. Of course, I doubt they teach the theory of computation at your local trade school.
Dan Zambonini would have us turn a Computer Science degree into a Computer Technician's diploma. The man hasn't the foggiest understanding of what computer _science_ is. He probably also thinks that astronomy degrees should concentrate exclusively on building and maintaining telescopes.
Don't let his shocking, and deeply depressing, ignorance make this important life decision for you. If you like science and you are enjoying CS, stick around. With a good foundation you'll be able to pick up particular job skills surprisingly quickly and with very little effort. If, instead of foundations, you learn only specific skills... it will be harder to adapt when the required skill set for your job changes.
What I wouldn't give to see the animated corpse of Dijkstra impale this Zambonini chap with a GOTO statement and a telescope.
I've got degrees in Physics and Math; and have never, ever taken a Computer course. I've also done a heck of a lot more than the author has.
What the author doesn't recognize is that one of the reasons you should take courses which aren't job related is to make yourself well-rounded. That is, capable of handling anything which comes up, instead of just being technically proficient in a few TLA's of the moment.
He completely fails to understand that the computer training you received in College will typically be obsolete in 5 years. However, if you've received an Education (instead of training), you can likely adapt to handle the new stuff as it develops.
Somebody who can actually think can pick up anything. Someone who just has job training is going to be in trouble unless they know how to adapt.
The only constant in this universe is change. You're best off preparing for it.
Whatever you do - don't abandon your course. The most common computer job is that of IT Support and Administration. This does not require a degree, any clown with an MCSE can work at this. It's what I do for a living so I know what I'm talking about here. I also know that jobs in IT are becoming less attractive as the number of potential employees rises and the number of available jobs declines due to better remote administration facilities and outsourcing of services. Over the next few years the postition of IT Support Engineer will reduce in standing until it reaches equality with that of building maintenance engineer. IT systems will be so common and transparent that they will largely be used without thought on the part of the users. In order to escape this you need a value added qualification. One that demonstrates the ability to think in a critical manner, perform research and produce technical reports that are accurate and comprehensible to a target audience, from lay people to experts. These reports are needed by companies and organisations so that their boards and committees can make sensible business decisions. A degree is absolutely the right qualification for your long-term employability. Nothing prevents you from getting an MCSE too.
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Error in module creativity.dll : Unable to create witty comment.
Abort / Retry / Ignore ?
There seems to be a disconnect between what CS is and what most curriculums offer. It seems that the submitter is getting a solid CS background when he might be looking for a degree in Software Engineering.
This seems to be a common occurance. My alma mater offered a CS degree which was actually more of a software engineering degree. Sure they offered courses in AI and more scientific branches, but I learned more practical programming than anything
I believe this confusion comes from the fact that colleges are pushed to churn out students that can get jobs instead of get their PhD. Sounds like it's time for seperate degrees.
There's a line I heard somewhere about those who fail to learn history, but I can't remember how it goes, Oh well, it's probably not important.
If you just want a job, go to a 2 year college and cram in as much as possible off his list. Do some stuff on your own if you have to. Fast, cheap, you'll be in the job market right away.
On the other hand, if you find yourself asking deeper questions in class, and instructors either not able, or not willing to take the class time to answer, maybe you should go to a 4 year after all.
I've used very little of my B.Sc directly in the last 12 years. But I can't count the number of times that something I learned has been very important to what I do. I also have a better perspective. People without a broad background tend to focus on solutions in their knowledge domain. People who understand how big the domain is can look outside it.
XML? Good grief! What do people like me who finished school before XML even existed do? Cry that we missed out? Or just learn it on the job, like every other new technology that appears after graduation day? The cutting edge is a moving target. If you try to aim for it, you'll be out of date by the time you finish. If you build a strong background, you'll be sharpening the edge.
Sure, there will be employers out there who expect to already have experience in some obscure specific software they use. But there are those willing to treat coursework as experience. 2 years in the workforce, and it will be irrelevant.
One thing I will say, is that you should round yourself out with some electives such as: business, economics, accounting, law, etc. A lot of people can write code. Not everyone understands the business reasons behind the code.
He is in the right program. A good Computer Science has a good to great theoritical underpinning. Look, the design paradigms will change. So will OSs. And the languages. and the DBs.
While 2 years ago, there were tons of CSers unemployed, so were the EEs and the CEs. Now, I do not know of any CSers that are unemployed. I do know of a LOT of CISers and vocational people who are unemployed. I also know a number of them have moved on to other professions because the industry has shrunk.
Basically, the CS/CE gives you the ability to do anything in the software world. The CIS/Vocational gives you the ability to do just what you learned. And back in the 90's, the CIS world was learning mainframes with Cobol, RPG, and PL1. Is that were growth is? nope. Has not been for sometime. Can these people move easily to Microsoft (where the most jobs are currently), or Linux (where all the growth is)? Nope. They do not have the underpinnings to make the jump.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...the majority of slashdotters probably have a CS degree...
What planet are you from?
You get the typical line out of them at an interview "I didn't learn C# in Comp Science but I could learn it in an afternoon.." I'm a young guy (22) and I've been programing professionally for nearly four years and I can tell you that this is simply false.
Well, I'm an old guy (42), who has not just learned, but used in shipped products, over a dozen languages. And I can tell you that I learn and master new languages a whole lot faster than all you guys without CS degrees who keep shooting off your mouths about how little use CS degrees are. Learning a new language in an afternoon is indeed an exaggeration, but learning a new language is a whole lot faster when you understand the fundamental mathematics on which all programs are based, and the way they are commonly expressed through language features.
Many times your department or project will live or die based on how well you write your reports and memos. And your user base will love or hate you depending on your ability to clearly communicate - at their level and from their perspective - how to use whatever you are running.
BS is an excuse to make bad decisions about partying and sex.
MS is for recovering some dignity and respectability.
PhD is for copping a gravy teaching position.
This is probably out of date as it occurred about 15 years ago, but the manager of the Best Job I Ever Had said he would never hire a CS graduate. I was an electrical engineer. There were english majors, philosophy majors, a geologist, and other non-CS people there. And we did some amazing stuff with Lisp, Smalltalk and AI.
The reasoning is that it is much easier for a good thinker to learn programming than a programmer to become a good thinker.
However, in most IT jobs, practical training and experience is probably the best ticket.
Dan Zambonini basically wants things learned on the job to be placed in the classroom. I have learned things like test-first development, extreme programming, system engineering, etc. where I should be... on the job. Think of Computer Science like law. You don't spend three years in law school going over courtroom procedure (because not every lawyer ends up in a courtroom for starters). Instead, you study cases and build up a toolkit of knowledge which you can then apply later in whatever environment you land in. Same with CS... study the concepts and learn how to think. If you know how to solve problems, then you can more easily learn the mechanics of programming.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
It's probably more important to be more rounded by taking an occasional class that you don't think you "need" and/or doing a minor or two rather than formulating your degree solely on what you think is good for a job. You might just find that you like another field better than CS. Also, much of what you need for the job is self-taught and learned on the spot anyway.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
As someone who has made a nice living developing computer software, overseeing software projects, *and* playing the piano (!), my liberal arts education (math major, music minor) came in very handy. If you want to specialize, to it in your graduate degree.
Best Buy can have you arrested
no matter how many times this question gets asked...the answer is always the same; if what you care about is remaining in academia(sp?) and/or doing pure research then getting a cs degree and an advanced cs degree are all you may need (and as a result you'll probably end up getting the better part of a undergrad math degree racked up along the way).
but, if you wish to join the corperate world of working monkeys; you really need to supplement your education either with a business or engineering minor or second major of some kind.
i'm sure this will sound like every other post that has come before me...so i'm just adding to the mess.
dude.
Of the hundreds of tech workers I've known, I've never met one with a CS degree. I have, however, known many people in retail management with CS degrees. All those nice theory and science classes are cool, but they aren't job skills or job experience.
One of the nastiest problems in the IT industry is a near-total lack of entry level jobs. If you show up for an interview that requires a CS degree, but some 18-year-old who can code circles around you and has been working a help-desk for six months also shows up, he'll often get the job.
If you're going to stick with CS and want to get a job, here are a few resume builders to keep in mind.
- Do work study helping the sysadmins manage the networks, or at least helping inept students in lab classes.
- Find a good internship every single summer.
- If you program, do useful work on worthwhile open-source projects.
- Go ahead and get a master's degree immediately upon finishing up your BS. Then you become a serious computer scholar, and not just another kid who got a CS degree for the money.
Likewise, Computer Science Majors don't have super-specific classes. Instead, they teach you the things that you wouldn't think to learn on your own. Fundamentals that make all your work as a compsci major easier. Having a solid understanding of algorithms, what's slow, what's complex, and why has helped me produce better work many times.
If I were in charge of hiring and I had a developer position open, I probably wouldn't hire someone if their school curriculum consisted of the classes he listed. Tech and code come and go, but fundamentals last forever.
Besides, if you can't learn that stuff as you go, you're not suited to a career in computer science. Only motivated and fast learners need apply!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I'd agree with this. If you're only looking for bare-bones programming ability, check out a vocational course. If you're looking for more advanced abilities like algorithmic analysis, the experience to see abstractions, better data structures, and more flexibility, stick with a BS degree.
I'm certainly not saying that you can't pick those things up from a vocational course, but you'll be doing it on your own. It's always a tradeoff between time/cash and general well-roundedness. Personally, I got my BS because I wanted the flexibility.
The main point is that vocational programs will teach you how to code. A BSCS will teach you how to learn. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which is better in a rapidly changing field.
So what if the current job market for artists/designers requires you to know Photoshop version X, Macromedia, Pantone, etc. You should be able to learn that stuff in a timely manner. But if you can't draw and aren't creative in the first place, maybe you're in the wrong field - it might take a bit too long to teach you that eh?
;).
;).
What's worth it is learning stuff that would take you a lot longer (like maybe never) if you had to do it yourself, or interesting things that you would never have thought of learning - never knew was there to be learnt in the first place. So what if it seems "Theoretical" only.
If I were an employer, I'd ask you what projects you'd recently done for fun, not because you were told to or forced to do by your course or previous employer.
If you call yourself an artist and the last time you drew something was 3 months ago as part of your college course, well that just isn't very convincing. In contrast, you're a pretty good artist if you're absentmindedly doodling a decent caricature of me during the interview ("right brain" just has to do something whilst "left brain" is talking to me).
Same goes for programmers. I'd expect your college to teach you the theory stuff that will remain true for decades at least - algorithms, information theory etc. But I'd expect you to mess around with current stuff too, on your own, just for fun/interest - it doesn't have to be very much, and nowadays most stuff is just a few google searches away.
Oh yeah, it's fine if you don't know the fancy tools/buzzwords in the industry. But if you can't do the programmer equivalent of using a "pencil" and sketch something passable, there are plenty of cheaper people in India who can and _will_.
Saying you know UML and all the buzzwords won't be as compelling to me as you actually having written something interesting which you can describe and explain to me in the interview what bits you think are nifty.
Anyone can say they know some buzzword and regurgitate the relevant keywords and phrases, and stick that in their CV. If people needed that, they should use google. If they only need just a bit more AI, maybe they should outsource
However, I'm not an employer at the moment, so maybe you should go with the flow, and listen to that buzzword guy
Start first by attending a school with name recognition. It's just like brand recognition. If, in a job interview, you get the "... and where's that school?" question, you're already on the defensive and at a disadvantage. "Recognizabiilty" (is that a word?... I should know, my undergrad is Liberal Arts), is relative. Some small East Coast schools are well known for their academics, but are little known on the West Coast and vice versa
Next, if you can't demonstrate productive software development skills during your interview, you're also at a disadvantage.
What are productive skills?
If those skills are vocational, so let it be written, so let it be done -- you need employment.
I had this very same discussion with the Department Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the school I mentioned, where I suggested a 1CR course on the above topics as a program requirement for the ECE major (remember... this is an Engineering department) and I got the same push-back, ".... we're hear to educate, not train..."
I'm back in industry as an employer and I won't hire anyone with less than 5 years of experience because, in the face of economic and competitive pressure in the software industry, I cannot afford to train someone to become productive.
Do what it takes to become employable -- courses, internship, networking.
I hear my soapbox creaking, so I'll step off of it.
It always amazes me how much stuff people think you can learn in college. Look at all those course topics listed in the opinion piece: patterns, architectures, usability, security, and more--subjects which take some serious time and experience to learn. However most students spend only four years in college, with maybe half of their classes devoted to CS. It's just not possible to get senior software engineer experience in an undergraduate program, and the colleges don't bother to pretend otherwise either. School is just meant to teach the fundamentals. You'll have the next forty years to develop "experience." :)
Think about it in terms of a spoken language. At the age of ten, most kids can speak well enough to express anything they want... how they feel, what they want, etc. They have complete freedom with the language; virtually no idea cannot be expressed with the vocabulary and rhetoric of a ten year old. Essentially what is being said is that a ten year old is on the same level as Hemingway or Dickens, because the kid, like these authors of immense literary genius, has the same freedom of language.
I'm only twenty-three, and I've been writing C/C++ code since I was in seventh grade... my biggest project so far has been in a team of three people and we put out maybe five or six thousand lines of code. I haven't had the necessity to delve into some of the lesser used aspects of C++, let alone the obscure. And I wouldn't dare call myself a master, or even a pro... I still see C++ code that makes my eyes cross for a few minutes. Five or six thousand lines of code to me is a good chunk, but probably chump change to any seasoned pro. I can still do anything I damn well please with the language... like the ten year old, but beyond that scope is being able to do anything I damn well please and do it well. That brings in a whole new level of ability to evolve... some of it language specifc, some of it simply a matter of being a good coder in general.
Code, like spoken language, is an expression of an idea. A language is created to express an idea, and in the professional world, immensely complex ideas. I learned why Python is so great in about thirty minutes and most of what Python can do in about two or three hours. But let's see how I fare against someone with a few years of experience in writing a simple program, say a client/server chat program. You'll see me stumble over my own ass more times than Jennifer Lopez.
It's true that the actual language is generally irrelevant to the idea. That's a moot point to this whole discussion though. When I speak or write, I don't think about the language; where I'm putting the nouns, my conjunctive whats'its, and God knows what else don't matter to me, it's mostly automated. Ask someone who doesn't write as well as me to write anywhere near my level (a ten year old for example), and they'll putter around for a bit... and it'll look awkward and forced. Ask me to write on Hemingway's level and I'll crank out maybe a crappy paragraph or two per week. The more I read of Hemingway, or any other seasoned author, the more I have no clue how they do what they do. The more complex ideas become, the more intracate the language used becomes. Little previously-unrecognized nuances can throw the whole idea down the shithole. Hemingway doesn't put an incredible amount of strained and wasted effort into his rhetoric, just like I don't, just like a ten year old doesn't. Each of us can express any idea, does this make us literary equals?
How will my code compare to one of the maintainers of the gnu C/C++ compilers.? That's the point of this whole thread right? The whole point of a CS degree in college isn't to teach you how to code, but the underlying ideas of coding in general, and hopefully the underlying ideas of that as well. A good undergraduate degree should leave you completely devirginized as to how anything digital functions, from basic circuitry to modular design. At least that's what I got out of mine. You don't get a Bachelor's or Master's degree to become a qualified expert... you do that in your job or Ph.D. program. You get the first degree(s) to become qualified to become an expert.
Just my two unprofessional pence though.
Just as one's choice of computer should be driven by the applications one needs to run, one's choice of education should be driven by what one intends to do with it. What do *you* intend to do with your degree? I would hardly call "theory of computation" and "numerical analysis" useless classes. This is what computer science is all about: the science of using computers to solve problems.
There are really three fields that comprise what lay people consider computer science to be. First, there is computer science, then there is computer engineering, and then there is computer technology. (Please note that there is no particular order to this ranking.)
The first, and most obvious difference is that computer engineers typically build hardware systems, while comptuer scientists typically build software systems. However, computer scientists are generally expected to understand the underlying hardware platform. Computer scientists typically know more about the theory of computation, the design of computer languages and operating systems. This is not to say computer engineers do not program. They do, however, most system level applications and languages are written by computer scientists. Computer engineers apply engineering principles to build computers and computer based systems. Computer engineers often design not only the hardware, but software also.
Thirdy, there are technologists. While scientists and engineers try to solve unanswered problems, technologists typically work on problems that are better understood. For example, a computer engineer might build a new network or a computer scientist might build a new software system, a technologist might use existing computers and software to implement something new. Technologists typically gain experience with existing systems and protocols, while scientists and engineers will work designing and managing new systems. As always, the line between technologists, scientists and engineers is often blurry because the state of the art in technology moves so rapidly. Technologists often work as computer scientists building new software systems, and engineers and scientists often work as technologists implementing new systems with available technology. Many, if not most people work as technologists in some capacity. Almost all work in the computer field rests on the work of others.
As an aside, I would say that the theory of computation is of great importance to companies such as Google and Oracle. I'm mildly flabbergasted someone would suggest numerical analysis is unimportant for computer scientists. Numerical analysis is the union of theoretical and applied mathematics toward solving problems with computers. Who could suggest that designing algorithms with a mind to how much memory they are going to use or how much time they are going to take is unimportant? Rounding errors and the stability of algorithms are both important topics within numerical analysis. Also, platform and hardware specific issues also factor into the analysis of algorithms. Maybe someone writing a script to run on a web server to talk to a database hasn't given much thought to concurrency and deadlocks, but his work rests on the work of people who have considered these problems, and more.
I read Dan Zambonini's article. It sounds to me he is describing more of a technologist degree, than a degree in computer science. I might suggest that he also take some resumes from graduates of technical or vocational schools, as well. Here in the U.S. (I realize the author's a Brit) people tend to slight vocational education, but the curricula offered by schools such as DeVry and I.T.T. are nothing to be sneezed at. I say this as a person who attended drafting school and learned pencil on vellum and ink on mylar. And for the record, I'm a technologist, not a scientist or enginner.
Thanks if you got this far.
Now that we've established that Dan doesn't know where to look for jobs in the game industry, let's talk about some of the other things he doesn't seem to get.
For one thing, the "programs" Dan is talking about are primarily things that I've discovered through years of experience (for example, real world Database Design), or things that I've picked up in a weekend over the course of my employment (for example, a second 'Big' language, a scripting/'agile' language or two, XML (and why it's actually a pretty terrible file format), and common protocols).
But they all share one thing in common: the courses that Dan are suggesting would be great at somewhere like ITT Technical Institute, or at Devry "University," but they do not belong at an academic institution--by and large. The things he is proposing are largely vocational. They'll make for an okay programmer, and probably only a okay programmer in one field. They do not make a well-rounded computer scientist, nor do they help you out when you decide that you don't want to do database design anymore, you want to write commerical shrinkwrap software instead.
My well-rounded CS education has allowed me to run the gamut of employment in computer science related areas. I started out in Telcom, moved to commercial shrinkwrap, wrote several video games for very large video game publishers, and now I design graphics hardware for the market leading graphics chip company.
Which of the courses there in Dan's suggested curriculum are going to allow me to do all of that? I'll give you a hint; they aren't there.
Without advanced mathematics (Calc II, Linear Algebra), I would've never been able to do graphics programming, which would've kept me out of the commercial shrinkwrap business (where I did image editing software). It would've further kept me from doing 3D grapihcs applications, which would've kept me out of the game industry as well as my current position. Without Advanced Data Structures, and Automata theory, I would've been unable to write code that was efficient enough for the high performance needs of the games I worked on.
In short (too late), Dan's proposed course load (of bullshit) would lead you to be a moderately acceptable programmer. You would be able to make a living, but you would always be one of the first to be laid off. Get a real education from a real institution of higher learning, and bring me good fundamentals. Because for pretty much all junior level positions, it's on-the-job-training. Without good fundamentals you will be unable to learn quickly enough to be of any use to an employer.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Here's why. To be a senior-level programmer anywhere, you have to understand the following:
- "Computer Science fundamentals":
- algorithms (so your software can perform)
- database theory (so you can design well and optimize your software)
- More general modeling theory (so you can write specifications and participate in large-scale projects)
- Language theory (so you can write concise, intuitive software)
- Operating System theory (something difficult, but possible, to become exposed to outside of a formal curriculum)
- Good software development methodologies (regression testing, version control like CVS and SVN)
- Experience with a wide variety of different languages
- Much of "enterprise software development" involves integrating systems that are written in different languages
- good software developers can embrace and extend what's out there, and that often involves taking components written in one language and using them in another
- you want to be able to choose the best platform for a given project, rather than being limited by only being able to use certain languages]
- Experience with a wide variety of different platforms
- Understanding different paradigms (ASP / client-server / pure client, microsoft / open-source)
I would major in computer science, try to do as many projects as you can, build (and finish) as many products as you can, get exposure to web-programming, do a lot of database programming, if you can find an internship or a job doing general ledger programming, I would check that out.Honestly, most of the time I've wasted as a programmer has been due to not being previously exposed to the more "formal and academic" concepts that underlie what I do.
A few reasons here:
You should have a good sense of what sorts of platforms are out there and what it takes to launch a product on different ones.
Just, don't think you can become a successful programmer without a lot of work. It's a long, intense process to be able to program well, but well worth the effort.
CS is your time to master theory and basics--the entire rest of your life will be spent learning languages X, Y, and Z, and the latest trends...
Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
It is best to complete the computer science curriculum. The courses you have listed seem to be relevant and they should teach you about some of the theory behind current computers. Unfortunately, I was not at a college that stressed the theory. I got out and I wondered why are companies not hiring me? Eventually, I went to a reputable college and learned the hard way the I did not know the topics/materials that I need to, in order to be productive.
Learn these topics well. Although they may not seem relevant now, they are some of the most relevant ones, if you want a rewarding career with computers. If you opt to take only the 'practical' courses, you can get by, but you will always be relegated to menial tasks. And, if you have any drive at all, wonder why you were not chosen for the more important assignments. You will think you can do them, and it is possible, but you will not be able to do them as well or in a timely manner as someone who has had, and understands, the basic theory behind it.
Example: I used to think javascript was difficult. I would try various things and sometimes it would work and sometimes it would not. Or it would only work in certain cases. At the time I did not know why. Now I realize that origionally I did not have the foundation I needed to understand what the books and examples were trying to tell me. I could not see what was wrong until I went to a 'good' university that had the knowledge to explain the theory and semantics in a way that I could relate too.
Have you programmed in ML? Lisp? What about Prolog?
Maybe you haven't programmed in some or any of these languages. If you have, though, you'll probably know what I mean when I say that, compared to C/C++, none of them are exactly a walk in the park. They require you to think differently about not just syntax, but the entire form of your programs.
What if your only programming experience was ten years of (not Visual) Basic, and suddenly you were faced with learning Java? The concepts of object-oriented programming would be completely foreign to a person coming from a language that doesn't even have user-definable data structures.
When I learned PHP (no, I'm no master), I was able to draw on my knowledge of C/C++, which is syntactically practically identical but more importantly the same paradigm. Learning how to tinker around in it was a snap. On the other hand, learning a language like Lisp, coming from C/C++, was much more of a challenge - yes, the syntax was different, but I had the whole ample use of parentheses thing down quickly. It was the fact that Lisp flows as a functional language but stutters as an imperative one that gave me fits. You'll never be a good Lisp programmer until you resign yourself to the fact that when you try to fit Lisp in to the C++ mold, you get crappy Lisp programs.
You're probably thinking, why the hell do I want to learn how to program in Lisp? I'll probably never use it. True, in a production environment, Lisp isn't anywhere near the most commonly used language. But college is about teaching you how to think more so than what to think. By learning Lisp while you're in college (or another language that doesn't fit into the C/C++/Java/PHP/etc. motif), you give yourself another way to think about how to do things. When you finish your degree and go into job training wherever you end up, that will help you just as much as the program design courses that give you the depth you need to get a leg up in the job market.
I've been out there with a CS degree for over 20 years. Yes, the theoretical classes are very important. A good mathmatical CS backgroud will give you a leg up in the long run. As others have said, it is important to learn the theory and why different approaches, OS's and languages exist. It will help you dig into the practical topics as programming languages, platforms and operating systems change. It will let you keep up with different philosophies of how to design a system, and maybe you'll understand why the flavor of the month is popular. Hopefully you'll learn to not be dogmatic.
Being dogmatic and a lack of flexibility has you using the equivilent of a hammer for everything. Very soon that will cause a career change and not by choice. Employers want people with a full tool belt. People who know how their tools work and why they use them. They also like to see that you change your tools as things evolve.
Where it is offered, takes classes where design or working within a team is required. It will give you an idea of programming within a team. People skills are important in the real world.
Do not pass on internships, involvement in open source or school projects. Anywhere there is a team of people writting code that will be used in a production environment by more than a few people. This will give you the leg up when you graduate. To say that you worked on code that is in production somewhere. Even if you can show you fixed a bug a month in firefox or apache. It shows you wrote peer reviewed code. You have code in production.
Use the internships to find out what you want to do. Try to get an internship with different companies each summer. Different evironments. Different types of projects. Different industries. Do not choose based on the cool company. Some cool startup doing something new might be cooler than google or microsoft.
you are not. Many CS graduates these days are jobless because of programs like this. Switch to a vocational program while you still have a change.
This post should win dumbest troll of the year.
I used to have this debate back when I was in school with people. In the school I began my degree there were two programs, a computer science program and a more "practical" computer information systems.
In Computer Science we learned the theoretical background, we learned how and why computers work as they do, and more importantly - how to learn. Language and skills were a way to re-enforce this theoretical base.
The CIS program learned the skills of the day. You know what one of their courses were? "Programming in Visual Basic" How many of those people taking that course 7 years ago do you think are still finding gainful employment programming in VB? And how many had to go back for skills upgrading?
I remember one summer on coop, two CS students, one CIS student. It was a help desk job, nothing exciting. But a call came in to help a user with Word. The response from the CIS person, "We didn't learn Word, we learned Word Perfect." So? If you had the theoretical background you could figure it out, find the relivant connections between the two.
As opposed to myself, my primary job these days is programming in perl. Do you think I was ever "taught" perl? No, we did C, C++, Java, etc. But I had the background to learn it on my own, because I learned how to learn, I learned how languages worked through courses such as "compiler design."
So are you in the wrong program? Depends, do you want a long term job or have to retrain every few years? People like Dan Zambonini are absolutely wrong, things like "learning XML" can be done from a book if you know the relivent background about languages and such schemas. I know that's how I learned (alright, working for the 'father of XML' for a few years certainly didn't hurt...).
Learning a language is pretty easy - if you've got solid background in algorithms and know a couple of languages (preferably at least one imperative and one functional) already. Start with finding the base datatypes, then the control structures (loops, functions, etc.) then the object model. At that point you've got enough to implement any algorithm you need. Odds are that's enough to start reading code related to the project you've been put on, and possibly some debugging. Once you start reading the code, look up the object definitions for the object types that are used. Odds are you'll find many places in the code where properties of the object aren't being used because the "developers" have been copy/pasting bad code all over the place rather than learning the objects that they're using, not to mention much business programming is considered finished when it works, not when it works right, works efficiently, or is sane to read - most business programming projects are far more spaghetti like than things allowed in a typical CS program.
I don't know that this method for aproaching a language was taught in my CS program, or if the program just gave me the mental tools to develop it for myself, but it does work. It has worked for me in several cases in the past, and I expect it to work many more times in the future.
You get the typical line out of them at an interview "I didn't learn C# in Comp Science but I could learn it in an afternoon.." I'm a young guy (22) and I've been programing professionally for nearly four years and I can tell you that this is simply false. CS major here with the same number years of experience (although mixed with part time and internships). I didn't do it in an afternoon. I did it over 3 nights. I read the APIs and learned the syntax. Where's the challenge?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Since you're going to be reading Plato, you should also look into some Aristotle. He goes into the nature of education and the idea of liberal education. Note, that this is not liberal, like Michael Moore liberal. You should also read about John Dewey's ideas on education, for a more modern view. It's very interesting stuff, and your school probably offers a philosophy course that can help you with your question.
...by telling them that you go to university "to get a better job."
The courses you listed are indeed useless for "getting a job" as they are in nearly every undergraduate major at major universities. And, contrary to what most high school students are told, the more elite the university, the less your degree will be helpful to you in just "getting a job."
Universities do not claim, and do not intend, to create workers. They do not provide "job training." They are not designed to find you a place at a company, but rather to give you the skills that you need to establish for yourself a place in the world.
Mere job-seeking and work as "an employee" requires that you limit the authority that you take for yourself and your actions; job seekers must order their universe using the already existing structures of the marketplace and the companies within it, and must order their daily lives and work according to dictates from above, in whatever company the end up working for.
Universities by contrast, in particular the elite ones, develop individuals who transcend marketplace, corporate, authority, and governmental structures. Their goals are to produce amazing people who will someday create those structures for others (i.e. the job-seekers and employees) rather than efficient people to populate them.
Many people are not suited to life outside of the employer-employee relationship. It implies a higher level of initiative, a greater amount of responsibility, a greater amount of culpabilility, greater stress (and possibly uncertainty) in life, and the requirement that you always think globally, flexibly, and adaptably, across a number of fields, criteria, consequences, and fronts, rather than just locally within your current task or field.
Young slashdotters: if you just want "a good job that pays well" with a minimum of other responsibilities, entanglements, or with guarantees about wages, responsibilities, and futures, you should be thinking about trade schools and vocational schools, not university, especially not top universities.
You simply do not go to a top university "to land a better job." Unfortunately, too many students do just that and then find themselves sitting around afterward unqualified for "jobs," unable to find "work" (because they are actively looking within the existing marketplace and corporate infrastructure of society, which universities by and large do not address), and saddled with debt.
For the right segment of the population -- bright, creative, self-directed, wanting to change the world rather than to work in it, willing to be flexible and to forego promises and stability -- university is precisely what the doctor ordered. For the 75% of the population that doesn't care what they do so long as it pays well, gives them a 401(k), health insurance, and the chance to climb the authority "ladder" within a single company, university is a colossal waste of time and money.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I see nothing wrong with the CS curriculum, however, a student should actively pursue the following weak points which Dan pointed out in his article:
I couldn't agree more. Allot of software companies hire CIS grads...mainly because they are cheaper than full CS grads. What happens when a software company retools and moves on to new languages? Either the employees 1) Move on to other companies or professions out of frustration with having to learn a new language, 2) Get canned because they are no longer in need, or 3) Ante up and push through to learn a new language. Unfortunately, 1 and 2 are usually the direction things go. CS grads on the other hand have the theoretical knowledge to move between languages with a fair amount of ease. CS grads are the ones that don't rely on the fancy gui's or pre-built code snipits and controls to do all their work...they know how to do this in code....while many CIS's do not. For me...I can look at pretty much ANY modern language and tell what its doing...get a syntax reference book, and start editing. CIS grads that I know...would just freak...because they were taught more business skills instead of theory. I don't discount the CIS degrees, I just don't think they are very practical for the true-blue programmer or shall I say "engineer". I have recently been struggling on whether I should push through and get a masters in computer science or take the easy way out (for me at least) and get a masters in CIS. I keep having to remind me of these facts...over and over... CIS curriculum teaches "Java" or "VB", while CS curriculum teaches "Data Structures" and "Operating Systems". Sure..languages (c++) are taught in these classes..but the focus is on language structure...not the language in particular.
BS = Bull Shit
MS = More Shit
PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper
But seriously, a PhD is no longer a ticket for the gravy train to tenure town. Tenure track faculty positions are incredibly hard to get, and if you do get one, you still have to bust your ass for a number of years doing research, writing grant proposals, etc. I took a course with a faculty member who was about a year out from getting evalulated for tenure. We had various homework assignments, and they were due at midnight on the due date. I figured that meant we had to slip our assignments under his door before he came in the next morning, but more often then not, he would be in his office at midnight working. So it does take a lot to get tenure, and also consider that a university position probably isn't going to pay as much as a job in industry.
First: the school's main purpose is not to teach you your job; it's to teach you the parts of the job you wouldn't be able to learn by yourself. Mastering a couple of languages and patterns is something you'll learn at your first professional position, every code monkey can do that by himself. You'll be allowed to think of yourself as fully trained when applying for your 2nd or 3rd job.
What you won't be able to learn under the pression of real-job-conditions is more fundamental: it's about having those abstraction capabilities, which allow to understand a problem, turn it into a formal model, find appropriate algorithms to handle this model. That's maths. Indeed, you'll probably never write a computer-vision system or a ray-tracer for a compagny. But by having been drilled on such problems at school, you'll [hopefully] have acquired some skills in complex problem modelisation and solving, that you'll need to write everything but dumb PHP interface to a DB. And you know what? These dumb code monkey jobs are going to become Indian or Chinese long before Duke Nukem Forever is released, so you'd better be able to work on smarter stuff.
I know, it hurts to admit that mathematical thinking abilities are a must for decent programmers when you're yourself mathematically-challenged. It must be unpleasnt to realize that a lot of tough training is required to acquire these skills. But just translate this attitude to an other field and you'll see how stupid it is: "I want to become a novel writer, so I don't see the point of studying ancient authors: nobody speaks/writes that way these days. I don't want to read war stories or poetry either, as I don't plan to write any. I don't want to hear about mythology, classical litterature theories, or whatever. What I want to be trained at is grammar (spelling is useless now that we have decent spell checkers) and type-writing".
to learn on your own time what isn't taught in your CS course, then it's time to consider another career.
Programming is hell if you don't love it.
What are you talking about? I'm a Helpdesk Manager, and I already get treated worse than the janitor.
As opposed to myself, my primary job these days is programming in perl. Do you think I was ever "taught" perl? No, we did C, C++, Java, etc.
:-). This hasn't exactly prevented me from getting gainful employment.
My undergraduate studies (which started in the mid-80s) basically taught me Pascal, Modula-2, and Oberon (guess which school I attended
On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to do my current job without Linear Algebra, and there are many days I wish I'd have paid more attention in all my math classes.
Sure, these courses may not be essential for getting a job. However, they're quite handy when it comes to keeping a job. Just about anyone who's read a tech book can code. Knowing how to write code that is computationally efficient, and knowing how common concepts work, will get you much farther. If all you've done is learned a bunch of languages but not the theory behind them, you have a lot more catching up to do when the next language comes along.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I doubt I'm the only one saying this, but let me reiterate:
* A Computer Science degree is not primarily about getting a job
* Understanding theory does in fact make you a better, and more employable, programmer
"I didn't learn C# in Comp Science but I could learn it in an afternoon.." I'm a young guy (22) and I've been programing professionally for nearly four years and I can tell you that this is simply false. Make no mistake about it, I'm still no coding grand-master and probably wont be for another ten years.
I think your statement here sums everything up nicely in favor of university degrees. You don't have such a degree, you can't learn new languages fast, can't recognize that ability in others and after four years you're still not an expert at the one language you do know and use daily.
Aside from the exaggeration of "[one] afternoon" which I agree is insufficient. You believe it's impossible because you yourself are unable to accomplish it due to your limited vocational training. Then you falsely project your own limitations on to others. As other posters have replied: yes. with a well grounded backround in theory and fundamentals it is possible to pick up yet another language in a very compressed period of time. (Though some of us benefit from an advantage in age over you.)
I have been proficient in the past with Fortran, Pascal, Modula-2, LISP and various assembly languages. I am currently proficient in Perl and shell and an expert in C, C++ and Java. (not trying to brag, a lot of /.ers have similar, or larger, skill sets and will relate to the rapid shifts in technologies that result in such sets.) The last job I took
up required teaching advanced data structures in Java; a language I hadn't touched before the first day of class. Within one week I was productive in the language, within two proficient and within a month I was expert and using most of the advanced features of the language. I can't count the number of times my employment positions have put me in such a position where the programming requirements of the job have changed abruptly. I have always been ready to adapt to the challenge in a very, very short time frame and I believe this is due to my university-based education. I'm not afraid to change jobs or be fired because I know I can adapt and be valuable and productive in any new environment.
Here's two more examples:
- Never during my education in CS did I expect to become a programmer and systems administrator for a Nortel phone system. But it did happen. I was ready for it and saved my company a lot of money in consulting fees because a dedicated technician didn't have to be called in to fix little issues.
- Second example: One of my students obtained a job with an aerospace company and it was my responsibility to monitor them for a year to make sure everybody was happy with the arrangement. I asked what they were working on and they replied "debugging HPL programs. I've never even heard of HPL! How am I suppose to know this?". I said "neither have I. How are you doing at it". They said "Fine."
They were "fine" because they had the necessary theory fundamentals squared away. I would trust this student to pick up anything new and previously unknown in a short time period. In general, I would trust university educated people to have this adaptability more than vocationally trained peopl.I'm really sorry for all the excellent, creative problem solvers you turned away because of your bias towards a single answer. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer (in any context) and doesn't, in itself, indicate an unworthy candidate. "I don't know; but I can learn it real fast" can indicate a truly flexible, useful person. Your loss; not the candidates.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
I got my CS degree in 1984. It's still useful, because they taught me theory, The languages they used (Pascal, PL/1 and LISP primarily) aren't.
My enthusiasm got me jobs. The degree only helped.
When I went to law school, almost everything I learned was theory. When I started the practice of law, I knew virtually nothing about actually running a trial. Now, I'm writing the book, and a publisher pays me for it.
Much of what I learned from the practice of CS and of law could have been taught at a trade school. 95% of the time, my work would be competent.
But that remaining 5% distinguishes between a tradesman and a professional. As a prosecutor, cross-examining the defence's psychologist or engineer, I have the advantage of knowing the basic theory behind their disciplines, because of the courses I took at university. I only tinker with writing software now, but I grok the new languages fast enough (when I get the chance to turn my mind to them).
I don't knock the trade schools. Enthusiasm to learn takes some people all the way through the theory they need to be pros. They don't need a university degree to be good.
And uninspired university graduates are so useless that should not be permitted to do anything important. I wouldn't hire them.
I remember that IBM used to hire only people with university degrees. Not just CS. Any degrees. IBM wasn't interested in what they learned at university. They wanted people who had the the enthusiasm/fortitude to slug their way through dry theory. A degree proved that the kid could work. Isn't that what an employer wants?
So what do you want? A job or a career? How much do you want it?
Focus on substance, not on trends. FWIW, I don't have a CS degree. I stopped taking certification exams three years ago (I will be taking the PostgreSQL CE exam by SRA merely as a way to help them improve the exam). FWIW, most of my background is in history, but I have a fairly strong math background as well which helps a lot. Heck, I make my history background work for me too but that is another matter (Occam's Razor makes a great software design principle, but you have to know what William of Occam attually said for it to make sense in this context). The computer science I have learned, I have picked up from discussing technical issues with CS professionals.
I see nothing wrong with your program though. I run across way to many people who either have CS degrees without a real understanding of the theoretical underpinnings, or a real desire to go and figure something out using the training they have. This is probably the reason why so many end up in jobs outside CS. Yet those I have known who *do* deeply understand the theoreticals and really want to figure things out often go and do very interesting work. Again it depends on the person and whether CS is really what they wanted to do.
If you want to have a buzzword complaint resume, by all means change course. However, this is very short-sighted in my opinion. If you really want to go deep into CS, then learn the theoretical underpinnings, get internships to flesh out your resume with real experience (or maybe contribute to FOSS software like PostgreSQL) and go for it.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I would definitely agree with you on the above. I, as a CS major, am not interested in doing anything except programming (In the immediate term, that is -- I cannot speak to the future.). Most of my MIS friends go into it looking for a chance to jump into management at a company after a few years at the bottom rung of the ladder.
ok, first off, dont take this as me bragging, but, to illustrate a point, I will compare, me and my brother, since the background is similar.
Me and my brother are almost 4 years apart. We both grew up on computers, and we both used them a lot. My brother is in his 2nd year at a university studying cs. My brother did better in school then i did. I have not yet been to a school after highschool.
I recently said to my brother , "My friend is building a dual dual core opteron box" and he asked me, "what is an opteron"
I mention other hardware stuff and he was completely clueless as to what cache was, or a system bus. So, i will give him the fact, maybe he is a software guy, and not a hardware guy. I have a friend who makes 90k/yr programming at ms, and he couldnt install the heatsink on his p4. I had to do it. go figure. So i start talking about software stuff, and he is completely clueless about that. so, here is where i begin to worry. he doesnt seem to know a lot about computers, and after further probing, he really doesnt know much at all. and I wonder. we pretty much spent the same amount of time on a computer, why is he so clueless?
One word: Passion
I have a real passion for computers, you can hear it in my voice when i get über excited about the 2gb of ram I just installed. or the one kilo fanless heatsink i just installed. He doesnt. He just says, cool. I never hear him get excited about anything tech wise. I can code ok. SO, can my brother. only in java. Im a linux monkey, he is a windows mouser. So, who do you want? Someone in school? or someone who cares about what he does? Do you want someone who actively partakes in the programming community and is productive with his computer or do you want someone who as soon as the homework is done starts playing games?
I love my brother, but, I honestly dont understand why he is taking cs. But, this was to just illustrate a point. My brother is not the only person like this. I know many cs grads that need my help in fixing their computers. or how much they dont know overall.
My last roomate was a technical recruiter. Everyday he would come home from work and say, hey - i have the perfect job for you. We would always talk about tech stuff, and I could always answer his questions. without any problems. Funny how that works. anywhoo... there are plently of uneducated computer junkies that know a lot. there are also plently of uneducated computer junkies that dont know sh*t. there are plently(mostly, from what i have encountered) cs grads that dont know shit. there are also some who do.
My point is this---Education doesnt matter, the person who takes advantage of it, or doesnt. Do they grow from it and use the knowledge? or does it become statistical junk? Do they become an individual or do they become just another product of the wonderful education system of the USA?
It is trivial to do trivial things in any language. It is not trivial to do engineering in any language. "the 2nd coming", apparently believes syntax and libraries are the only differences between languages. That is wrong.
... but they are meant to be production languages so the seemingly trivial differences loom much larger.
Many people mistakenly believe Java and C# are practically the same. Unless you are talking Scheme vs Lisp few have as similar syntax. Yet there are many differences, and the implications of those differences for engineering in each language is much larger. Java and C# are the same if you are not doing engineering in them
Will a day of learning syntax help you understand the difference in how generics are implemented in Java 1.5 vs C# 2.0? Do you think the difference won't matter in how you should use generics in the language?
Learning a production language at university is a distraction, because you are trying to _learn_ useful long term principles. You are not trying to _apply_ them to a production system. Eventually will need to do that in a job, and the path from junior to senior engineer is the time to do that learning.
Don't take a class at school about C#, or Java, or C++. Learn it yourself, by making and maintaining a long term hobby project. Just don't underestimate how deep is the problem space around learning to be effective in a language.
The problem with University education is not the lack of learning production tools. A University is not a trade school. The problem is the lack of perspective given to students about what will be important if their goal is to be a software engineer. You don't need to learn at school all the details that come with experience. However, it is a disservice that most students leave school with the wrong idea about what their future path of learning needs to be.
I don't know about C#, but I learned Tcl and Python in about two days each. I do the following:
That takes maybe 3-5 hours. The rest of the time is spent coding with the API reference at your side. I'm only just started my third year of a CS degree (along with Chemistry).
The fact of the matter is that most languages you'll be using are object-oriented imperative languages. Once you've played with languages like ML and Prolog, you'll realize how similar they all are. The "intricacies of writing code" are mostly design and algorithm choices. Figuring out how to execute the design in your language of choice is trivial.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
But it's not science. It could be argued that a typical computer science curriculum doesn't teach much science either. Quite possibly the coursework needs to be strengthened, though I know from my modest contacts with curriculum development that in practice it very much depends on how fast students can absorb the material and consider its implications. Faculty discuss this challenge all the time. To get the basics of computer science in four years is, not surprisingly therefore, about the same process, and about as hard, as doing the same thing in chemistry or any other scientific field.
So it seems inevitable that improvements to the computer science curriculum will move it some distance further away from Zambonini's shopping list than it is already. Science, after all, is a systematic discipline for discovering the nature of the universe.
I notice that Zambonini is not in the least concerned about that. So why look to a science degree to deliver something that's not in fact about science? You're shopping in the wrong store. Learning how to program, for example, is like learning how to operate a mass spectrometer. Of course you have to master the tools, but in science that itself is strictly not the goal. In a technology diploma it pretty much is.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Our university teaches software engineering. The professor who teaches most of the software engineering courses is an idiot. For my project, my group and I wrote a pretty kick-ass app with some pretty kick-ass code. How? We snuck in some agile methodology, which just seemed perfect given the size of the group and the size of the project. Even though our project was the best in the class, we got a C because the specifications weren't complete, and she wasn't convinced that our automated tests would really test the code. (The other groups who got A's for testing wrote some very non-specific paragraphs about how they might test their code. None of them actually did any testing)
What this proves to me is that software engineering is easily the most useless discipline in computer science. I have never had a good experience with it. I've never known anyone who said that software engineering really makes things run smoothly. It's a business-centered/management-centered unrealistic approach to software development. It may make your boss feel all warm and fuzzy, but it won't get the software out the door on time, nor will the developers have any degree of confidence in it.
If it's not one thing it's your mother.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to do my current job without Linear Algebra, and there are many days I wish I'd have paid more attention in all my math classes.
;-)
As someone who teaches Linear Algebra, I'm very curious -- what kind of job do you have? (I figure it may be another motivator for my students.) And don't say you are a Linear Algebra teacher.
Most people think that you can just be sat down in front of a computer and taught to "program". What is the essence of programming? Is it the language? No. Is it the operating system? No.
It's the *CONCEPTS*! Computer Science teaches the concepts behind the programming and why you should do certain things. It teaches you to discern for yourself how complex systems act. People who have certificates have reduces this profession to something most people think of as a "vocation" which is a crying shame.
A vocation is something that people learn to do without much understanding of the science or technical justifications behind what they are doing? Do you think a mechanic knows the physics of how a car works down to the smallest level? No, he only knows that which he needs to get the job in front of him done. And guess what, when he needs to learn about a new car he has to go back to school to learn about it.
Computer Science gives you the tools you need to get the job done AND it provides you with the knowledge you will need in the future to adapt because you have a deep undestanding of how things work, instead of simple rote memorization.
Understanding the concepts is what give Computer Science and, indeed, any science or engineering discipline it's power over a simple "vocation."
Don't listen to the guy who wrote the article (I already forgot his name) he sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
"People like Dan Zambonini are absolutely wrong, things like 'learning XML' can be done from a book if you know the relivent background about languages and such schemas."
Agreed completely. When the original RFC for XML hit the scenes, I downloaded it, and read it my own damn self, and later studied up on what to do with it. Who in the hell wants to waste their tuition on stuff like that?
The technology flavor of the month is the WRONG THING for a university to be teaching. If that's what you want, you can go to a community college, or some tech training school, and save yourself some cash. Theory lasts way the hell longer than specific technologies do. Any university that isn't giving you the fundamentals is wasting your money.
As an employer, I'm often hiring people for positions which require unusual skillsets. Because it's highly unlikely that I'll find anyone who has the full set of skills they need to do the job, I'm always on the lookout for people with strong theory and fundamentals. They will be more likely to be able to figure out the things they don't know than the guy who studied whatever was hip at the time.
I did. Having graduated from collage, I now realized I knew enough going in to do most programming jobs out there. Computer science is a branch of mathimatics. If you just want to program without learning anything, take MIS, and quit cha bitching.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.