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The Tools Don't Get You the Job
An anonymous reader writes: It's a trend that seems to permeate education across every discipline, from creative to technical: reliance on a single expensive, proprietary, vendor-driven tool. Whether it's the predominance of Adobe in design programs, of Visual Studio in many computer science programs, or even Microsoft Office components in business schools, too often students come away with education that teaches them how to be rote users of a tool rather than critical thinkers who can apply skills in their discipline across toolsets. Relying on knowledge of a single tool chain can create single point of failure for a student's education when licensing comes back to bite. What can we do to bring more software choice into education to give students more opportunity when they get out into the real world?
Random updates (downgrades) to the UI don't get you more readers (or clicks).
If the students actually care about what they're learning, and unless they are blithering idiots, they'll use their critical thinking and go learn what extra they may need all by themselves.
A diploma is worthless if you can't think for yourself, but this isn't something that can be taught, apparently.
In the post couple of companies I've worked at, HR will throw away your resume if it doesn't say Microsoft Office. That makes it hard to find guys like DBAs. Two friends couldn't even get a phone screening because they didn't put Microsoft garbage on their resumes. The corporate world has suffered with Microsoft garbage for so long that they want to require everyone else to suffer with them.
So the solution to only learning one set of tools is to just learn the set of tools some person who writes for random website mandates?
You mean like grinding my life away on SolidWorks?
At my school for my undergrad and grad programs we used a various set of IDEs and OSes. The only time we needed to be locked into a vendor for dev tools was when the class was targeted at that. A large % of the time we could use whatever worked for us.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
The Tools Don't Get You the Job
Well except for when the company hiring for the job only uses a certain set of tools and actually wants you to have experience in them, right? Because that is hardly an exceptional case.
This is not news, and we see it all the time. We are swimming upstream though. We are given multiple classes with over 100 people each by the administration and then expect the students to be interested. We do our best to provide students with the ideas and tell them that they need to be problem solvers rather than just trying to complete some rote steps to get their reward. Unfortunately, the system is set up so that the onus is on the students to understand that they need to take the initiative and get their education. That does not put money in the budget though and makes for unhappy students when you try to challenge them. Would not matter any way the student/teacher ratios are too big to give the students the support that they need. Students pay the money, teachers treat them like numbers, and the administrators measure the success in terms of revenue. The system is broken.
It's called (libre-) free open source software. Apparently some projects are even gaining traction in large companies!
Our education system seems to be getting into a worse state. I don't remember seeing anything positive happening for a while. And no, I don't count free iPads or Chromebooks as positive.
See below for my very sarcastic remark that I decided not be my primary comment to the story. I figured it was still applicable though.
That would create chaos to make people think for themselves and outside the box. Why would we ever do such a thing?! I mean it's not like anyone ever needed to do that to be successful. Oh wait, there are "things" to do things for us now so why would we need to worry about those ever failing.
If you forget the idea that university is about education, which after all can get for free or very cheaply, universities are a cult. Members hire other members, sort of like a training program... Oh and you get nice debt and the friends of the cult leaders get a nice safe marketplace driven by student loans.
so.. is it possible to have dice NOT fuck with everything? seriously, the front page now looks like someone puked parts of some wallstreet guy he ate all over the place. What the fuck am I going to with this share button? I'm not and will never be signed up for any of that crap. Fuck you for constantly fucking up everything you touch. In either, where i have clicked for years there is now a blank space and a fugly button next to it, and did you make the vertical lines square-edged too? wtf? When we rejected beta you thought that was an invitation to fuck up the other layout?
Stop using Micro$quish and Crapple garbage. Select free and open source software and store information in open standard document formats. Ignore creeping feature-ism and think for yourself.
Oh wait, that would be a South American or European solution. In North America, remain slavishly devoted to closed source products and then complain bitterly when somebody throws you a curve ball.
Nonsense. If the tools are used in 99% of software shops out there then it only makes good sense to teach kids how to use them. What doesn't make sense is trying to convince kids that the tools are going to be used in every place they go to work, and at least show them a few alternative ways to work. If you work for any of a large number of game studios you'll be using MSVS. If you work at Sony you'll likely be using MSVS and a bit of Linux. If you work at Facebook, Google or Amazon it's much more likely you'll be using pure Linux+LLVM toolchains. The more computers a place has the less likely it's going to use Windows. Fact, because licensing gets expensive and big shops can afford Linux specialists.
The question is whether we should insist on coursework being turned in as VCXPROJ files or as cc/h files with an LLVM backend. Common sense says that if we give them Visual Studio the results are much more likely to be reproducible. Open Source projects have a nasty tendency of requiring X compiler + Y patch + Z reconfiguration. There's a good chance they wouldn't be able to explain to their professor how to get the damn thing to build properly. The goal of CS isn't to teach about vague incompatible languages and nuances in standards implementations, it's meant to teach about the maths and principals of understanding computation and algorithms. It's a purist view of how code achieves a result without looking too much at code.
When you are learning "Hello World" in almost any language, you should be able to use any arbitrary text editor and fire off the compiler/linker/etc. from a command line, run your program, and go from there.
After you do this, then you can start playing with fancy tools like IDEs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's the process, not the tool.
Why did I click on this dumb article?
If it's a man job we are talking about, then results get you the job and tools get you the results.
If it's bullshit and you are just looking for someone who shines, then sure do nothing of value.
Critical thinking is like common sense, not so common anymore.
Kids coming out of college now have huge student debts which means they fail the first big test of life.
Most can't get jobs that pay enough to cover their student debts let alone proceed to raising a family and doing better than their parents did.
The next generation will end up renting their entire lives and retire on whatever is left of social security and still be paying on those student loans when they die.
Not smart to major in english or art.
Granted most of my Education was during the 1990's where Microsoft was King, and using anything other than Microsoft was considered antiquated.
However the fix, is to teach the ideas and not the tools. How to use a Word Processor not Microsoft Word, How to program in C++ not Visual C++.
Most schools do happen to have multiple platforms available the teacher should try to have the students mix it up a bit. A Linux or Mac Guy should do some work on the PC, vice versa. Not to try to convert them to love the other system, but to show them where things are similar and where they are different.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Because HR Drones don't understand software, I am finding that quite often the tool DOES get you the job, and consequently, it's incredibly hard to break out of either the LAMP or Microsoft Silos when designing software. Sure, for a particular industrial robot, FORTH may be a better language, or for certain expert systems, LISP machines work well, but when doing such a project in the real world, there are only a few real choices- C#, C++, Java, or Python is all anybody cares about.
So make sure your students are exposed to a wide variety- but make sure they're EXPERTS in learning new frameworks and learning new syntax.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Where's the kid that actually understands what he/she is creating? What happened to teaching the basics? Colleges are cranking out of bunch of button-pushers.
1980's: Learn to use a computer
1990's: Learn to use a word processor
2000's: Learn to use Microsoft Word
2010's: ?????
2020's: PROFIT!
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
put all office suites (Microsoft, Libre, TeX, etc) and all certs in the resume. somewhere in there, also squeeze in your specialized talents. if you don't win Buzzword Bingo, they don't call you.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
reliance on a single expensive, proprietary, vendor-driven tool. Whether it's the predominance of Adobe in design programs, of Visual Studio in many computer science programs, ...
Visual Studio is free for students, OSS contributors, and small teams. It's only larger enterprises that have to pay for it.
Visual Studio Code is free and cross-platform, runs great on Linux (and mac), and is a pretty handy tool for working in node.js and other languages.
(disclaimer: I work in the Visual Studio team)
Critical thinking is another one of those buzzwords that need to die. College can't teach you critical thinking. Those who have it don't worry about resumes or job openings.
...non-document mode. Pffffttt!!
there is a total lack of worthy places to work.
Every CS program I've heard of has used Java, Python, or C. That's how end up with CS graduates I have to tutor in C# where I work.
and switching to some other tool whether is proprietary or open source, is not the solution. You need to learn how the tool contributes to the end goal, and not just how to use its features. For example, if you learn the tenants of good design you are to limited to a single tool. You may use that tool and be most comfortable because it is and industry standard, but you could go back to pencil and paper and still turn out great designs. Similarly in business, you need to understand how to do financial analysis and may use Excel because that's what's installed on your computer but you could still do it the old fashioned way with a pencil, paper, and 11c. Knowledge outlasts tools. As my mechanic dad said "I started out tuning cars with a quarter and a wrench, later went to timing lights and now computers; but in the end it's still air spark and fuel..."
In the end, don't confuse with learning how to do something and how to use a tool.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
...most companies use the Microsoft stack and Microsoft Office. So, yes, being well versed in them could actually help you get a job.
Teach concepts. The language is simply used to get the concepts across.
Anyone who actually gets a CS degree and can't quickly learn a new language/tool/whatever either barely passed, or the school completely and utterly failed the student.
Companies that hire only programming language X end-users instead of well trained computer scientists are the other end of the problem and a tougher nut to crack. Mediocrity is the goal for most companies.
No matter what your field is, as long as you are sufficiently educated and intelligent, it doesn't matter what tools are going to be used.
I don't know. This is kind of true. Being an expert in Adobe products won't "get you the job" by itself... unless you happen to walk into a job where they're looking for an Adobe expert, in which case, it might.
But also, in all honesty, if you want a job doing design work and you only know how to use Adobe tools, that's probably totally fine. Can't use GIMP? That's fine. Nobody uses GIMP. I mean, yes, some people use it, but go around to professional design firms and ad agencies, and they all are using Adobe. Knowing Adobe isn't enough-- you need to have a work ethic and a design sense and whatever else, but it's not like you really need to know other tools.
I haven't read the entire article, but the beginning (and the summary) seems to imply that the purpose of education is to further your career, and I feel that belief is a bigger mistake than training on industry-standard tools. Ideally, if you go to college, you shouldn't just be learning how to use Adobe, but you shouldn't just be learning how to use graphic design tools (open source or otherwise). You should be learning about things, and not just how to do things. Like, you should learn about history and science and literature and art. There should be trade schools and vocational schools that teach you how to use Photoshop or GIMP, but a real college should teach you about the concepts design and aesthetics.
Business says they need Java programmers so everyone should be a Java programmer. Hope you got in early because if you're behind the curve, you might not get hired. Take a look at every trend and you see this pattern. It's not just IT. It's everywhere. Nurses, construction, whatever. That's why I wish schools would think more before pushing people in to occupations. Chances are if there's a high demand for something when you enter school, the demand won't be there when you graduate.
As for tools, if someone needs a C# programmer, they don't hire COBOL programmers. I've met plenty of programmers and non-programmers that could do the job if the company was willing to give them time. But now everyone has to hit the ground running. The problem is that in places I've worked the toolset is determined by the senior (most favored) developer and not logic or need.
A blacksmith will typically create an anvil for personal use, rather than buying one. It's a part of the process of becoming a real blacksmith. It's not unique here, many craftsmen make or customize their own tools. I see hardware engineers doing this a lot as well, jurying rigging up some device to help them out.
This used to be true with programming too, there weren't many tools so you had to write your own or modify someone else's (and you shared them with others). If a new type of computer came out you would port the tools are maybe even write some from scratch. Today the kids can't even begin to imagine this: if there's not a button on their IDE's to do what they want then they don't do it, they don't bother learning a scripting or shell languages to do what they need. I mean it's a frigging computer, the whole point of it is to be able to program it to do what you want it to do!
...the only quotable I've ever liked or ever will like:
Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign.
Every job description for the past 20 years in information technology is a list of specific things you must know to get the job.
H1B1 and the will to work 60-80 hours for 40K (even in CA) is the key.
In the real world, you know which companies use "inefficient people and/or inefficient hiring process"?
All of them.
I recently responded to a job ad looking for a coder with experience with 2 related development tools. I responded with a resume and cover letter, stating I had experience with one of the tools, and with over 30 years' experience on many different platforms, libraries, etc I was used to jumping in and picking up new skills. I got a response back, but once it was clear I didn't have tool #2, communications dried up quickly. And the correspondent was an engineer, NOT an HR type.
The very animated Clifford Stole - (The Cuckoos Egg, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Stoll) talked about this in his TED talk almost 10 years ago (http://www.ted.com/talks/clifford_stoll_on_everything?language=en) - ie: Computers don't belong in schools. In another talk, he related a story about his time at JPL - specifically, his colleagues wanted him to get a new computer, he famously refused because, as he said: I am paid to think, and a new computer is not going to make me think faster, or think better.
Whether it's the predominance of Visual Studio in many computer science programs
I must have missed that.
Yes, I was looking for a job in 2000. .NET". .NET - I am from the future."
Yes, some postings had "5 yrs experience in
I did apply for these jobs, with a 1-line disclaimer at the bottom: " 17 years experience in
HR has proven to me that they are not only ignorant, but resistant to learning.
I do like the term "BussWord Bingo"
I have relatives who are teachers and have seen over the decades that "we're teaching COMPUTERS" theme has become a common claim/excuse/justification. My experience with the associated mindset is admittedly more at the K-12 end, but I'll get to how this relates to colleges and trade schools in a moment.
In response to questions about traditional things dropped from the lesson plans, like parts of US History or elements of classic literature like the Bard, the claim is "there are only so many hours in the day and now we're teaching COMPUTERS"
In arguments over the need to better fund schools (which are already funded better than in the past and better then most of the world) the response is "but now we have to teach COMPUTERS"
In any discussion about careers, these people announce that they have to spend more time on continuing education to stay atop the latest stuff, because for example they now need to be able to "teach computers"
Aside from the irritating notion that the claim, which must come from some union talking point memo, is worded as though these otherwise-smart people are teaching the computers things (when what they MEAN is that they are teaching kids to use computers), this demonstrates an alarming problem with the whole way teachers in the US (at ALL levels) THINK about computers. When I asked them "are you teaching kids how computers work?", the answer was "no". When I asked "are you teaching them to design or build or program computers?" the answer was "no". When I asked are you teaching them to use "Linux or BSD or anything other than Windows or Apple?" the answer was "no". In fact, after deeper probing, it became clear to me that most of this "teaching computers" nonsense was actually teaching kids to browse the web, interact with certain educational applications, use a word processor, etc. All these things are things any reasonably intelligent person can teach himself in quick order. In effect, the computer classes were really just like free indoctrination into the use of a preselected set of commercial products. Any real computer instruction should be absolutely devoid of indoctrination into the use of certain commercial tools - it SHOULD be about understanding HOW the stuff works (whether we're talking about low-level coding, web page building, or photo or video editing, etc) and never should be about the specific tools, which are likely to change between the time when a student leans to use them and when that student enters the workplace. Rather than teaching photoshop, instructors need to teach theory of image editing and then expose students to both Photoshop and Gimp and possibly others to produce an actually educated student. Rather than teaching Visual Studio, instructors need to teach C/C++/C# and then expose the students to Visual Studio, GCC, Mono, etc
I know a few folks whose career is based on Matlab skills.
Or Microsoft SQL Server, whose T-SQL query language appears to have a fairly active question and answer community on Stack Overflow.
Perhaps I'm more humble than the typical commenter here for I admire Newton's famous line:
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." So I use the tools created by the hard work and inspiration of previous generations of programmers.
That post brought tears to my eyes, brining up fond memories of the old /. I know and love. Now, where's tub girl?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"You cannot use that technique, we have no learned that in class yet!" THIS is the reason why there is a lack of critical thinking, not the tool chains themselves. Far too often students are punished for self-learning and creativity. While no, this isn't a problem in all classrooms, it is far too common to NOT be an issue.
With respect, the commercial software does involve even MORE waiting for some neckbeard wizard to find time to solve my issue between his Stargate SG1 marathons and WoW raid because you have a choice of one or two in the entire fucking world allowed to work on the issue after it has spent a month going through a trouble ticket system. I had to wait six months for a single line of code to be changed in an application after I had reverse engineered what it had to be changed back to. For that six months an expensive laser printer plotter sat idle.
They don't teach kids in the public schooling system to think critically, and that is why this article is coming off on the wrong foot.
Give me the ones who know how to figure out what they don't know.
Keep the super-geniuses that know have a stack of MS* or CN* or xxx years using $product and a huge bucket of buzzwords...but freeze up when things get messy.
period
This has gone on since the industrial revolution, think buggy whips and slide rules. When I attended business school it was Wordperfect, Lotus123, and dBase. They didn't survive the Microsoft onslaught very long. I had to adapt or falter. I guess its progress?
I equate computer expertise to a mastery of tools. We all have a word processor. How many of us have actually written a book?