It is not particularly scary. Software systems don't benefit from redudancy in the same way that hardware systems do. Most software bugs are systemic (ie, an uncommon code path that just doesn't work). So redudant software systems (even ones that are multiple seperate "clean room" implementations) frequently go down at the same time when in the same operating environment.
For more information check out the work of Nancy Levison and the other people in her group.
Actually because TeX has limitted pools of memory, it is not turing complete even if you assume that the hardware is infinite. If you cheat and let TeX write to disk you can make it though.
Some other people talked about vi being Turing complete. Most turing machines for vi have the same problem, because real vi's (ie not vim) have line length limits.
Students don't have time. And if they do have time, they'd rather do something not related to computers (which is completely understandable).
I have noticed that with the rising cost of education and the low rate of unemployment in technical areas that students who would traditionally hack on projects go and get jobs as webwhores or simliar. Have you noticed the same thing at UM?
Not to be a bitch, but it sounds like you simply have a challenging Computer Science curriculum. With the influx of people into the disciple brought about by its high media profile, it seems like a reasonable reaction from your professors.
I am one of the undergraduate members of the MIT SIPB (Student Information Processing Board), the MIT equivalent of the XCF. We are an older group (founded in 1969) and are less hardcore then what XCF came off as in the Salon article (though I believe that is because of Salon's portrayal rather than a real difference). We have a similar system for evaluating new members. And we have a similar (though much less severe) recent problem with recruitment.
I believe that the problems with recruitment are not due to collaboration between people over the Internet, or even to freshman coming in with a hacker support community already formed on the net. The bigger issue is that being a geek is not such a socially unacceptable flaw anymore, especially around MIT.
Two things used to drive people to the SIPB: Access to good hardware and people with whom to geek. Both of these encouragements are starting to slip away. And the social barrier to entering SIPB has always been high, due in large part to elitism among its members and the perception of elitism by the community.
10 years ago undergraduates couldn't run Unix in their dorm room, or even have networking. If they wanted to hack they had to come to SIPB. The machines in the office used to be a big draw. That is not so anymore. Unix workstations that we can afford are comparable to freshman's new Intel machine. Our fastest workstations are rivalled by my $800 Linux box. And providing even faster machines would not really help. I don't need an Ultra60 to hack on.
The draw of people to geek with is still strong though. That is what keeps me and others coming back to the SIPB office. Between current members and the cruft (members who are no longer students) who hang around there is an alarmingly high density of real world computer experience. Its a great place to go to have people tell you your new design is crap or your idea for a company will fail. But more and more students never feel that attraction, never feel the need to hang out with other geeks.
In some way this is because of the net, and the fact that these students come in with support networks. But even more than that it is the omniprecense of geeks at MIT. People who need their fix of geeky social interaction in real space can usually get it in their living group. The odds are there are a couple of people who run Linux and understand when you talk about your projects. They aren't very useful when it comes to critique, but you can get expertise online. People who would have become SIPB addicts^Wmembers in the past now get by on geek methadone, amply available in their current social groups.
Its a difficult problem to solve. I don't have a solution, or I would have deployed it at MIT. Sometimes we think that people don't know about us. We have talked about Slashdot (a common brand of methadone) banner ads targetted to net-18. But really the problem is harder than telling people we exist. It is to convince people that our membering process is worth the time and effort, and that we are a social group they want to join.
We are not dying. We do not have significantly fewer members then we have had in the past. But people no longer seek us out. Many of our members finally get over their inneria and join when their existing social scene flies apart. Others (like me) get dragged in by people in their living group and eventually get members by virtue of having sat around the office so much. But this year we didn't get any freshman. They don't realize that they need us, yet.
Slashdot Mirror
It is not particularly scary. Software systems don't benefit from redudancy in the same way that hardware systems do. Most software bugs are systemic (ie, an uncommon code path that just doesn't work). So redudant software systems (even ones that are multiple seperate "clean room" implementations) frequently go down at the same time when in the same operating environment. For more information check out the work of Nancy Levison and the other people in her group.
Actually because TeX has limitted pools of memory, it is not turing complete even if you assume that the hardware is infinite. If you cheat and let TeX write to disk you can make it though. Some other people talked about vi being Turing complete. Most turing machines for vi have the same problem, because real vi's (ie not vim) have line length limits.
Not to be a bitch, but it sounds like you simply have a challenging Computer Science curriculum. With the influx of people into the disciple brought about by its high media profile, it seems like a reasonable reaction from your professors.
I believe that the problems with recruitment are not due to collaboration between people over the Internet, or even to freshman coming in with a hacker support community already formed on the net. The bigger issue is that being a geek is not such a socially unacceptable flaw anymore, especially around MIT.
Two things used to drive people to the SIPB: Access to good hardware and people with whom to geek. Both of these encouragements are starting to slip away. And the social barrier to entering SIPB has always been high, due in large part to elitism among its members and the perception of elitism by the community.
10 years ago undergraduates couldn't run Unix in their dorm room, or even have networking. If they wanted to hack they had to come to SIPB. The machines in the office used to be a big draw. That is not so anymore. Unix workstations that we can afford are comparable to freshman's new Intel machine. Our fastest workstations are rivalled by my $800 Linux box. And providing even faster machines would not really help. I don't need an Ultra60 to hack on.
The draw of people to geek with is still strong though. That is what keeps me and others coming back to the SIPB office. Between current members and the cruft (members who are no longer students) who hang around there is an alarmingly high density of real world computer experience. Its a great place to go to have people tell you your new design is crap or your idea for a company will fail. But more and more students never feel that attraction, never feel the need to hang out with other geeks.
In some way this is because of the net, and the fact that these students come in with support networks. But even more than that it is the omniprecense of geeks at MIT. People who need their fix of geeky social interaction in real space can usually get it in their living group. The odds are there are a couple of people who run Linux and understand when you talk about your projects. They aren't very useful when it comes to critique, but you can get expertise online. People who would have become SIPB addicts^Wmembers in the past now get by on geek methadone, amply available in their current social groups.
Its a difficult problem to solve. I don't have a solution, or I would have deployed it at MIT. Sometimes we think that people don't know about us. We have talked about Slashdot (a common brand of methadone) banner ads targetted to net-18. But really the problem is harder than telling people we exist. It is to convince people that our membering process is worth the time and effort, and that we are a social group they want to join.
We are not dying. We do not have significantly fewer members then we have had in the past. But people no longer seek us out. Many of our members finally get over their inneria and join when their existing social scene flies apart. Others (like me) get dragged in by people in their living group and eventually get members by virtue of having sat around the office so much. But this year we didn't get any freshman. They don't realize that they need us, yet.
Note that Infocomm was an MIT startup. Hmm, I wonder why it was so much like hacking...