[IP] Re: U.S. colleges retool programming classes - Yahoo! News

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Kemp <john.kemp@mac.com>
Date: May 29, 2007 9:51:18 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: U.S. colleges retool programming classes -  
Yahoo! News

Why we need more CS students:

Who's going to design Emacs for computers without full keyboards?
Without understanding algorithms, how will the next Google (for example)
work at all?
Without a full understanding of (bio-?)chip design, how will you know to
design the next generation of electronics?
If you don't have a CS degree, how would you ever find out that LISP is
the one programming language no-one can live without?

Computer Science is about more than programming, or system
administration as we know it today.

A good CS degree teaches people the fundamentals they need to do
something new - it is both a lesson in history, and a blueprint for the
future. It advances the knowledge in that area.

I agree that many people don't need a degree to work in the tech
industry. But that doesn't mean we don't need students enrolled in good
CS degrees. Innovation is what will suffer.

Regards,

- John

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Zach White <zwhite@darkstar.frop.org>
> Date: May 29, 2007 1:40:36 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] U.S. colleges retool programming classes - Yahoo!  
> News
>
> Dave,
>
> For IP, if you wish.
>
> There's one question I have for everyone on this list: Why do we need
> more CS students?
>
>
> A bit of background for everyone before I jump into my question:
>
> I'm currently 28 and have been working professionally in one tech job
> or another for 10 years now. I've been interested in and learning  
> about
> technology since I was in grade school. Somehow my personal track kept
> me away from programming and steered me towards a sysadmin career,  
> but my
> experience has put me into contact with many different programmers and
> technical people. Today, in addition to my system administration work,
> I also write web applications in php and python that are used in a  
> number
> of different organizations in the energy sector.
>
> I have not attended college. I graduated from high school in 1998  
> and saw
> the writing on the wall. I moved immediately to Northern California  
> and
> started working in the tech industry on the basis of my technical  
> skill.
> Had I gone to college I would have graduated just in time to hold a
> degree that might get me a McJob (2002, just after the bubble burst.)
>
>
> In my past I've worked for ISPs, local tech houses, software companies
> and non-technical companies. There are a number of roles for which
> companies indicate they want someone with an EE/CS or equivilent.
> No matter what their actual dutites I've seen 4 basic archetypes:
>
> The Genius; The genius was the smartest guy at the company. He knew  
> how
> everything worked and was the guy that management went to when they  
> had
> something new to do.
>
> The Programmer; The programmer was just that, the average, everyday
> computer programmer.
>
> The Admin; The senior system administrator, who made the decisions on
> what their technical infrastructure looked like.
>
> The Tech; The tech was generally a semi-skilled worker doing grunt  
> work,
> such as help desk, QA or system maintenance.
>
>
> Let's take a look at The Genius first. The Genius is the guy that's  
> been
> programming since he was 8. He started on a C64 or an Apple II with  
> basic
> and moved on from there. In high school he was reading Diijkstra and
> Knuth. From there he either went on to the working world or he went  
> on to
> study EE and/or CS, often on a full scholarship.
>
> These guys have universally put me to shame. I have tried to debate  
> them
> in my weaker moments and have always lost. I've talked to many of them
> about their college experience and except for one guy all of them said
> it was a waste of time. Of those that didn't attend college they have
> universally said that they've never regretted not going.
>
> The Programmer is by far the most common player. This is also the
> player that is most likely to benefit from a CS degree. The problem?
> They didn't learn anything useful.
>
> I have had to educate programmers in basic skills they should have
> picked up in CS 101. For example, not long after I joined a well-known
> dot-com there was a vulnerability discovered in OpenSSL. Naturally I
> upgraded it to avoid the exploit.
>
> A couple weeks later our head programmer (who held a CS degree from
> Caltech) came to talk to me about it. Apparently because I had  
> installed
> both the shared and static versions of OpenSSL it was now being  
> compiled
> against the shared version. I spent an hour explaining the difference
> between shared libraries and static libraries. He still wasn't  
> convinced
> it didn't matter. So I spent 30 minutes explaining to him (in step by
> step detail) how to change '-lopenssl' to '/usr/local/lib/ 
> openssl.a' and
> how it was no different than not having the shared library in the  
> first
> place.
>
> The kicker? A couple hours later he came back with my boss and they  
> asked
> me to remove the shared library because they thought it was causing
> problems. I did so and it didn't fix their problem. A month later I  
> put
> the shared library back and never heard another complaint.
>
> For those of you unfamiliar with Unix the problem I just described is
> a basic one. A programmer who doesn't know the difference between a
> shared library and a static library is similar to a car designer who
> can't tell you the difference between a carborator and fuel injection,
> and has to ask the mechanic to explain the differences.
>
> The Admins and The Techs are really in the same boat when it comes to
> a CS degree. There's no reason for having them go through a CS  
> program.
> If these jobs need any training after highschool it's best handled  
> either
> on-the-job or in some sort of vocational school. (Those have their
> problems too, however. I will not hire an ITT grad, for example, as  
> I've
> never seen any worth their salt.)
>
>
> This brings us around to my question; Why do we need more CS students?
> Or, more correctly (if a bit harsh); Why are CS degrees so worthless?
>
> The smartest guys, those who should be involved in getting their
> doctorate, see it as a waste of time because they learned it all in  
> high
> school. There's nothing a CS degree will teach them they don't already
> know.
>
> The guys that would actually benefit from a CS degree aren't learning
> anything either. Why? They're not being taught. Current CS degrees  
> focus
> so much on algorithms and math that they see the basics as  
> unimportant.
> They're teaching students to jump and do cartwheels but they don't  
> teach
> them how to walk.
>
> There are a couple interview questions I ask every candidate that  
> anyone
> with a CS degree should be able to answer in under a minute. Most  
> (~60%)
> of the candidates I've seen can't answer these questions.
>
> The questions:
>
>     Please write a program that prints out the numbers 1 through 10
>     in the language of your choice.
>
>     Please demonstrate a snippet of code in the language of your
>     choice that will swap the value of two variables.
>
> I'm not looking for specific answers here. I'm looking for whether  
> they
> can answer these very basic questions in under 5 minutes.
>
> I've asked a number of candidates these questions. Those who did not
> have a degree answered them every time, typically in under a minute.
>
> It's only the people who have a CS degree that have ever failed these
> questions. Some of those guys had more than 5 years working  
> experience,
> too! To be fair, most of the guys that failed these questions were  
> trying
> to get their first job.
>
> It still leaves me wondering: How did these guys gradutate with a CS
> degree in the first place?
>
> -Zach
>
>
> -------------------------------------------



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