"If I wanted a trade school I would have gone to one, which is what you are describing."
Nope, no it isn't. It's a university where you sign up to study something and that's what you do. Not all of compsci, or physics, chemeng or whatever is training for a trade. It's academic study.
I am not a robot, I also went to enjoy my studies. That didn't include irrelevancies to the subject I was dedicating my life to.
"It is absolutely true that most of the non-US world views university time as a students opportunity to learn how to do a job."
Not what I'm suggesting at all. Re-read my comment. I'm suggesting that when I decided to dedicate a number of years of my life to a subject, I sure as hell wasn't interested in studying irrelevancies in other, totally unrelated fields.
"I'm not a programmer but would strongly suggest that unless you want to be "just a programmer", "
I'm not "Just a programmer", I'm a Software Engineer.
"Take business courses (accounting, management, ethics),"
Uhh, no, thanks. What happened to "University isn't a traininc course for jobs"?
"some liberal arts (literature, and especially writing), debate, communications,"
All things I had got covered to a decent extent by the age of 16 and would have resented having to do to a higher level in order to get a degree to which those things are unrelated. BTW, I'm frequently congratulated on my communications skills and writing style at work, in a huge business oriented multinational.
"and yes, even non-programming technologies like general info-sec."
All part of the stuff you learn around the academic pursuit of computer science. In your spare time.
"You'll be a better programmer,"
By learning less computer theory. Good one.
"know how to talk to the business"
Don't really care. That's something ordinary humans pick up through experience.
"bring value-add to your projects"
How? You have yet to put forward a way in which a liberal arts education helps at all.
"and in the end be more than just a technogeek"
I already am thanks, I have real friends and don't spend every waking hour in front of the screen, just a lot of them as it's a passion. You don't need liberal arts to find your way out of a server room and I find it intensely patronising that you assume that that is the case.
"At the very least you'll end up leading teams of people... probably made up of those who went the techo-only route."
Already there. I'm sorry, but you have yet to demonstrate a single advantage to LA courses at the university level, other than some fluffy self-satisfied superiority complex. Or possibly if you completely wasted the previous decade of education.
"Do you feel that Rousseau's view of the state as the manifestation of public interest is accurate? If so do you feel that corporate bodies fit under the idea of private interest, or do they serve the public interest as well?"
The fact that I am not acquainted with a particular individual's philosophical standpoint is not a hinderance to an intelligent conversation. In fact it's often quite the opposite, as one simply drops names and references previous argument one loses the feeling of actually exploring the ideas and begins to talk in a thick meta language that stifles debate.
Furthermore, I'm more interested in the views of those I'm talking to than those who wrote the book on it. Perhaps you could rephrase your question in a way that eliminates the required knowledge of the literature of a single individual.
Or would you like to discuss the early roman xenophobia displayed, in particular towards the middle east, in Virgil's portrayal of Dido and her family?
Umm, did you miss the bit where I totally failed to say anything about just learning programming?
A good CS course will cover engineering practice, networking, database theory, protocol design etc etc.
As for OS installation, web servers, DNS etc - you figure that out on your own time when you're experimenting with your machine(s) back in your room. It's trivial stuff compared to compiler theory, computer architecture and algorithm design.
What I was talking about was the american propensity for forcing students to do totally unrelated subjects for major parts of their college life, which would have been a waste of my time and bored me to tears.
"For a couple of years. Then your narrow technical skill is outdated, no longer fashionable; then what?"
By "narrow technical" skill I mean computer science. Not Ruby on Rails or LAMP or VB.net. CS does not go out of date. You can further specialise later into DBA, network consultancy etc etc for the really big money. If you want to.
"The belief among so many in the field that learning disciplined critical thinking skills is "a waste of time", is probably the primary reason why so much software sucks so very, very, very badly."
I didn't say that. In fact you'd be hard pushed to find a single person that fulfills your utterly puerile straw man. You fail at debating.
So much software sucks very badly because too many people are ill educated in the Software Engineering side of it. Not because not enough people study the history of war on the side.
Err, this should be part of any good CS or Software engineering degree. We covered it in our second year, doing a project in a group of 4, taking it through from requirements, design, test and (incremental) releases.
There were software engineering courses every semester, compulsory for the first two years.
This is why you need to pick a good CS course, not a good reason to enforce study of history on the side.
"Enjoy sitting in a cubicle and living out the Office Space life."
We don't do cubicles in the UK. They suck.
"I can have an intelligent conversation about political theory and the merits of the arts and sciences as they relate to society."
So can I as I am intelligent human being with an interest in life.
"The best part? I actually enjoyed my education."
Likewise.
"A well rounded education allows a person to discover exactly what it is about a particular subject that they enjoy doing, not just how to apply a method to a problem."
There is little to nothing in art history that would have helped me discover a love for cryptography or distributed programming. What's more is that I would have been bored as hell learning about it.
"There's nothing wrong with immersing yourself in a specific subject; that's why I'm going to graduate school."
Oh right, you yanks are just late developers, high school being roughly the equivalent of our kindergartens. I always forget that.
"What's best for students is really to give them the second category (for IT as you put it "a general understanding of computers and an intimate knowledge of how they work (plus language theory and a wide exposure to different languages)"). A lot of Unis do not now have such an option."
Really?
OK, I was assuming that sort of thing was narrow enough. A degree in just one language or technology would be bad. When I was mouthing off about the US system I was aiming at the places you go for a CS degree and end up having to do modules in art history, literature etc. etc. Not really relevant and not really an advantage, IMHO.
"My LA let me move into other aspects of CS with relative ease where my fellows who had programming degrees mostly went without jobs because they couldn't adapt to hardware and systems administration."
Really? How? How do liberal arts help one in hardware or sysadmin work? I really don't understand this. It sounds like the guys who did programming degrees are just idiots. A good CS degree, work and hobbies involving tech and an actual interest in computers should automatically equip you for these other areas far better than someone that did classical literature on the side.
"All they could do was program. Of course, the fact that I hated programming and liked the other aspects of computers may have helped that, but I'm also a better technical writer, and better at interpersonal communication than most of the tech school grads I have met."
This is their personal failing, not their course. IMHO. OTOH, the other benefit of the UK or European system is that some of the best CS courses are run by universities that also have world class LA courses so you mix with non-nerds socially and don't become that guy with the huge thick glasses and the penguin t-shirt. You know that guy, he smells of cheese and has a bent wrist from using the mouse whilst slumped way too low in front of the screen. There's one of him on every CS course. You'd probably get more at an all-tech university.
"Besides, seeking to limit yourself so narrowly means you are more heavily affected when a downturn occurs in your field of specialization. "
Which is why you get your well rounded education in high school. And exactly what help is a liberal arts component to your degree when there's a downturn in software engineering?
Seriously, I want to know. Because as far as I can tell, when you're outside your field of specialisation, you're knocked back to the same level as liberal arts types. You have an irrelevant degree prvoing a certain amount of intelligence and dedication but not necessarily equipping you for a particular job.
Switch to a european (specifically British) University.
We don't do a single thing that's not related to the course. My CS degree was three years of CS theory and practice along with software engineering. Perfect.
"Remember that the point of attending a university is to get a *well rounded* education."
No, no it's not.
The point of university is to totally immerse yourself in your chosen subject. See European universities for examples of how this really works. You spend three or four years doing nothing but what you signed up for. Far better use of time.
"As someone with some (limited) experience interviewing job candidates, IMO the ability to be thoughtful and articulate will serve better than narrow technical skill."
Whilst being articulate helps, you've clearly never hired a software engineer. Some narrow technical skill is EXACTLY what will get you the big money in software, and what will get you hired over and over. Having a general understanding of computers and an intimate knowledge of how they work (plus language theory and a wide exposure to different languages) is also a good thing.
But studying arts/humanities alongside? Waste of time. You had high school for that.
You'll not only have a better time (mpore liberal attitudes towards sex drink and drugs) but you'll get a better qualification.
Imagine that - three or four years of studying ONLY the course you signed up for, immersing yourself in it totally. Nothing beats it. Also you'll get a more rounded view of the world by spending some of your younger life in another part of it.
Yesd, likewise if your entire market consists of people who have genuine concerns about the health and environmental impacts of the use fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. That and the recently proven better nutritional value of organic produce.
Just because you have an inferiority complex because you can't afford organic food doesn't mean other people don't have good and valid reasons for choosing to buy it.
Once it's installed and running then there are a lot of similarities. OTOH the distinguishing features are often ease of installation and upgrade, whether or not you can use it in a live CD way, supported platforms (I 3 debian for it's ARM support), size of install (DSL/nDSL is great for a bootable USB stick ) etc etc etc
But yeah, essentially, one desktop linux is usually much the same as another.
"*sigh* If a money transport van crashes into your garden, is the money yours?"
*sigh*
That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. And I'm not kidding laddie, that one could win prizes.
Money doesn't require your own nutrients and your own plants to interact, breed with and nourish it. Money doesn't waft over walls with nobody to miss it, somebody probably cares and takes effort to stop money floating away. Money doesn't invisibly turn up and change your crops into something someone else has patented.
In short, sorry, but that analogy is so wide of the mark you may as well have said "*sigh* If a pizza truck crashes into your toenails, is the cat dead?"
Seriously, you have a field of crop X. Other farmers around you have a field of GM crop X from company Y.
You find that next year your crop has gained some of the properties/genes of the GM version through airborne cross pollination. You think this is a good thing and keep growing it.
Why should there be any consequences? Their modified genetic material has invaded your crop. You haven't stolen anything. Why should you be sued?
hell, the guy should be able to sell it on as his own roundup resistant strain in any sane world.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, these things are related.
Ancient history, philosophy, art and literature are not. Those are liberal arts.
"Managing people, money, time, etc. are all non-technical skills that you need to learn to have a successful career."
And all are best picked up on the job.
Managing time and people/projects, by the way, are specifically covered in the Software Engineering courses that are part of any good CS degree.
"If I wanted a trade school I would have gone to one, which is what you are describing."
Nope, no it isn't. It's a university where you sign up to study something and that's what you do. Not all of compsci, or physics, chemeng or whatever is training for a trade. It's academic study.
I am not a robot, I also went to enjoy my studies. That didn't include irrelevancies to the subject I was dedicating my life to.
"It is absolutely true that most of the non-US world views university time as a students opportunity to learn how to do a job."
Not what I'm suggesting at all. Re-read my comment. I'm suggesting that when I decided to dedicate a number of years of my life to a subject, I sure as hell wasn't interested in studying irrelevancies in other, totally unrelated fields.
"I'm not a programmer but would strongly suggest that unless you want to be "just a programmer", "
I'm not "Just a programmer", I'm a Software Engineer.
"Take business courses (accounting, management, ethics),"
Uhh, no, thanks. What happened to "University isn't a traininc course for jobs"?
"some liberal arts (literature, and especially writing), debate, communications,"
All things I had got covered to a decent extent by the age of 16 and would have resented having to do to a higher level in order to get a degree to which those things are unrelated. BTW, I'm frequently congratulated on my communications skills and writing style at work, in a huge business oriented multinational.
"and yes, even non-programming technologies like general info-sec."
All part of the stuff you learn around the academic pursuit of computer science. In your spare time.
"You'll be a better programmer,"
By learning less computer theory. Good one.
"know how to talk to the business"
Don't really care. That's something ordinary humans pick up through experience.
"bring value-add to your projects"
How? You have yet to put forward a way in which a liberal arts education helps at all.
"and in the end be more than just a technogeek"
I already am thanks, I have real friends and don't spend every waking hour in front of the screen, just a lot of them as it's a passion. You don't need liberal arts to find your way out of a server room and I find it intensely patronising that you assume that that is the case.
"At the very least you'll end up leading teams of people... probably made up of those who went the techo-only route."
Already there. I'm sorry, but you have yet to demonstrate a single advantage to LA courses at the university level, other than some fluffy self-satisfied superiority complex. Or possibly if you completely wasted the previous decade of education.
"Do you feel that Rousseau's view of the state as the manifestation of public interest is accurate? If so do you feel that corporate bodies fit under the idea of private interest, or do they serve the public interest as well?"
The fact that I am not acquainted with a particular individual's philosophical standpoint is not a hinderance to an intelligent conversation. In fact it's often quite the opposite, as one simply drops names and references previous argument one loses the feeling of actually exploring the ideas and begins to talk in a thick meta language that stifles debate.
Furthermore, I'm more interested in the views of those I'm talking to than those who wrote the book on it. Perhaps you could rephrase your question in a way that eliminates the required knowledge of the literature of a single individual.
Or would you like to discuss the early roman xenophobia displayed, in particular towards the middle east, in Virgil's portrayal of Dido and her family?
Umm, did you miss the bit where I totally failed to say anything about just learning programming?
A good CS course will cover engineering practice, networking, database theory, protocol design etc etc.
As for OS installation, web servers, DNS etc - you figure that out on your own time when you're experimenting with your machine(s) back in your room. It's trivial stuff compared to compiler theory, computer architecture and algorithm design.
What I was talking about was the american propensity for forcing students to do totally unrelated subjects for major parts of their college life, which would have been a waste of my time and bored me to tears.
"For a couple of years. Then your narrow technical skill is outdated, no longer fashionable; then what?"
By "narrow technical" skill I mean computer science. Not Ruby on Rails or LAMP or VB.net. CS does not go out of date.
You can further specialise later into DBA, network consultancy etc etc for the really big money. If you want to.
"The belief among so many in the field that learning disciplined critical thinking skills is "a waste of time", is probably the primary reason why so much software sucks so very, very, very badly."
I didn't say that. In fact you'd be hard pushed to find a single person that fulfills your utterly puerile straw man. You fail at debating.
So much software sucks very badly because too many people are ill educated in the Software Engineering side of it. Not because not enough people study the history of war on the side.
Err, this should be part of any good CS or Software engineering degree. We covered it in our second year, doing a project in a group of 4, taking it through from requirements, design, test and (incremental) releases.
There were software engineering courses every semester, compulsory for the first two years.
This is why you need to pick a good CS course, not a good reason to enforce study of history on the side.
"Enjoy sitting in a cubicle and living out the Office Space life."
We don't do cubicles in the UK. They suck.
"I can have an intelligent conversation about political theory and the merits of the arts and sciences as they relate to society."
So can I as I am intelligent human being with an interest in life.
"The best part? I actually enjoyed my education."
Likewise.
"A well rounded education allows a person to discover exactly what it is about a particular subject that they enjoy doing, not just how to apply a method to a problem."
There is little to nothing in art history that would have helped me discover a love for cryptography or distributed programming. What's more is that I would have been bored as hell learning about it.
"There's nothing wrong with immersing yourself in a specific subject; that's why I'm going to graduate school."
Oh right, you yanks are just late developers, high school being roughly the equivalent of our kindergartens. I always forget that.
"What's best for students is really to give them the second category (for IT as you put it "a general understanding of computers and an intimate knowledge of how they work (plus language theory and a wide exposure to different languages)"). A lot of Unis do not now have such an option."
Really?
OK, I was assuming that sort of thing was narrow enough. A degree in just one language or technology would be bad. When I was mouthing off about the US system I was aiming at the places you go for a CS degree and end up having to do modules in art history, literature etc. etc. Not really relevant and not really an advantage, IMHO.
"My LA let me move into other aspects of CS with relative ease where my fellows who had programming degrees mostly went without jobs because they couldn't adapt to hardware and systems administration."
Really? How?
How do liberal arts help one in hardware or sysadmin work? I really don't understand this.
It sounds like the guys who did programming degrees are just idiots. A good CS degree, work and hobbies involving tech and an actual interest in computers should automatically equip you for these other areas far better than someone that did classical literature on the side.
"All they could do was program. Of course, the fact that I hated programming and liked the other aspects of computers may have helped that, but I'm also a better technical writer, and better at interpersonal communication than most of the tech school grads I have met."
This is their personal failing, not their course. IMHO.
OTOH, the other benefit of the UK or European system is that some of the best CS courses are run by universities that also have world class LA courses so you mix with non-nerds socially and don't become that guy with the huge thick glasses and the penguin t-shirt. You know that guy, he smells of cheese and has a bent wrist from using the mouse whilst slumped way too low in front of the screen. There's one of him on every CS course. You'd probably get more at an all-tech university.
"Besides, seeking to limit yourself so narrowly means you are more heavily affected when a downturn occurs in your field of specialization. "
Which is why you get your well rounded education in high school. And exactly what help is a liberal arts component to your degree when there's a downturn in software engineering?
Seriously, I want to know. Because as far as I can tell, when you're outside your field of specialisation, you're knocked back to the same level as liberal arts types. You have an irrelevant degree prvoing a certain amount of intelligence and dedication but not necessarily equipping you for a particular job.
Please explain to me if I'm wrong.
Switch to a european (specifically British) University.
We don't do a single thing that's not related to the course. My CS degree was three years of CS theory and practice along with software engineering. Perfect.
Also you're legally allowed a beer here.
"Remember that the point of attending a university is to get a *well rounded* education."
No, no it's not.
The point of university is to totally immerse yourself in your chosen subject. See European universities for examples of how this really works. You spend three or four years doing nothing but what you signed up for. Far better use of time.
"As someone with some (limited) experience interviewing job candidates, IMO the ability to be thoughtful and articulate will serve better than narrow technical skill."
Whilst being articulate helps, you've clearly never hired a software engineer. Some narrow technical skill is EXACTLY what will get you the big money in software, and what will get you hired over and over. Having a general understanding of computers and an intimate knowledge of how they work (plus language theory and a wide exposure to different languages) is also a good thing.
But studying arts/humanities alongside? Waste of time. You had high school for that.
Really. Go to Europe.
You'll not only have a better time (mpore liberal attitudes towards sex drink and drugs) but you'll get a better qualification.
Imagine that - three or four years of studying ONLY the course you signed up for, immersing yourself in it totally. Nothing beats it. Also you'll get a more rounded view of the world by spending some of your younger life in another part of it.
Yesd, likewise if your entire market consists of people who have genuine concerns about the health and environmental impacts of the use fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides. That and the recently proven better nutritional value of organic produce.
Just because you have an inferiority complex because you can't afford organic food doesn't mean other people don't have good and valid reasons for choosing to buy it.
Once it's installed and running then there are a lot of similarities. OTOH the distinguishing features are often ease of installation and upgrade, whether or not you can use it in a live CD way, supported platforms (I 3 debian for it's ARM support), size of install (DSL/nDSL is great for a bootable USB stick ) etc etc etc
But yeah, essentially, one desktop linux is usually much the same as another.
"*sigh* If a money transport van crashes into your garden, is the money yours?"
*sigh*
That's the worst analogy I've ever heard. And I'm not kidding laddie, that one could win prizes.
Money doesn't require your own nutrients and your own plants to interact, breed with and nourish it. Money doesn't waft over walls with nobody to miss it, somebody probably cares and takes effort to stop money floating away. Money doesn't invisibly turn up and change your crops into something someone else has patented.
In short, sorry, but that analogy is so wide of the mark you may as well have said "*sigh* If a pizza truck crashes into your toenails, is the cat dead?"
I understand that, more's the pity. The post I replied to made it sound like this was natural and good though.
having used both extensively, I'd say they're remarkably similar, though in debian you do have to do a few more things manually.
Oh absolutely, could ruin your whole market. I think the non-monsanto customer has far more grounds for suing them thatn the other way around.
"To be fair, he separated the Monsanto based seed from his own variety and was planting it intentionally."
So what?
He likely got cross pollination. In any sane world it would have been no issue at all.
So fucking what?
Seriously, you have a field of crop X. Other farmers around you have a field of GM crop X from company Y.
You find that next year your crop has gained some of the properties/genes of the GM version through airborne cross pollination. You think this is a good thing and keep growing it.
Why should there be any consequences? Their modified genetic material has invaded your crop. You haven't stolen anything. Why should you be sued?
hell, the guy should be able to sell it on as his own roundup resistant strain in any sane world.
That's something else bethere don't do.
I'm sure they have a FUP somewhere, but I haven't hit it yet.
How fast is it?
I have 24Mbps service from bethere.co.uk
Sure, it suffers from real speeds bein anywhere from 13 to 20, but that's still a good chunk.
The problem has historically been, and continues to be, run by and for americans.