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Computer programming isn't what Computer Science courses are attempting to teach. You're describing a Trade School. I think Trade Schools are a decent idea.

Computer programming isn't what Computer Science courses are attempting to teach. You're describing a Trade School. I think Trade Schools are a decent idea. But learning the trade SHOULD NOT be what they teach in a Computer Science curriculum.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Great. Then get the CS programs to stop lying to kids who say "I want to be a programmer."
- VikingCoder 11y ago
  Great. Then get the universities to stop lying to kids who say "I want a job." Yes. In general, it's a real problem. I have yet to see a single Art History curriculum include a Deep-Fryer Cleaning course. If universities aren't going to prepare students for the jobs they're going to have, then they shouldn't lie to kids about it.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
First, a more minor point: Mechanical engineering is a university subject, even though it isn't physics. What you call "Trade School" is really software engineering; it is properly also a university subject, rather than something that should be dismissively consigned to trade schools. (It could be taught there as well, of course, to the same degree that mechanical engineering is - which I suspect is not much.) My larger point: According to your thinking, then, we need to take the people who are studying computer science, and move maybe 98% of them to a software engineering major. If CS is what you define it to be, we absolutely do not need as many CS graduates as we have people enrolled in CS. What we currently have is that the schools think they should be teaching CS (per your definition), and both the students and the outside world are expecting the courses to teach what is actually useful out in industry - software engineering. I could actually see this as a useful split (we separated physics from mechanical engineering). But then CS becomes "that computer thing you take if you want an academic career", not what you teach all the people who are trying to get a job. CS loses the vast majority of its students, and with it, much of its prestige.
- jameshart 11y ago
  In general, you're right. But I think you're underselling the value of pure computer science compared to the software engineering discipline. Physicists don't have to go into academia, they can ply their trade applying physics, collaborating with engineers on the cutting edge of semiconductor manufacturing, aeronautics, space exploration, and so on. Before a field is ready to be turned into engineering, the early work is usually done by physicists. Sure, there's hopefully no need to account for novel physics when you're building a bridge - all the theoretical models engineers need have been worked out long ago (by physicists). But if those same engineers were working on a space-elevator? They'd bring along some physicists to help figure out the new stuff they were going to encounter. The same applies to the software domain, too: before something like deep learning can be engineered into regular products, it's going to be computer scientists who work out all the details - and not just in an academic environment, they're doing it in industry, working with engineers to turn theory into practice.
mwildermuth 11y ago
Seems like the trade school component is being at least partially covered by the Bootcamps popping up. And just like some CS programs expect you to then go out and learn how to be a software engineer (usually via jobs), there's an expectation in these Bootcamps that then you'll go out and learn the deeper/broader CS components you missed out on (usually via jobs).

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

Great. Then get the CS programs to stop lying to kids who say "I want to be a programmer."

VikingCoder 11y ago
Great. Then get the universities to stop lying to kids who say "I want a job." Yes. In general, it's a real problem. I have yet to see a single Art History curriculum include a Deep-Fryer Cleaning course. If universities aren't going to prepare students for the jobs they're going to have, then they shouldn't lie to kids about it.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

First, a more minor point: Mechanical engineering is a university subject, even though it isn't physics. What you call "Trade School" is really software engineering; it is properly also a university subject, rather than something that should be dismissively consigned to trade schools. (It could be taught there as well, of course, to the same degree that mechanical engineering is - which I suspect is not much.) My larger point: According to your thinking, then, we need to take the people who are studying computer science, and move maybe 98% of them to a software engineering major. If CS is what you define it to be, we absolutely do not need as many CS graduates as we have people enrolled in CS. What we currently have is that the schools think they should be teaching CS (per your definition), and both the students and the outside world are expecting the courses to teach what is actually useful out in industry - software engineering. I could actually see this as a useful split (we separated physics from mechanical engineering). But then CS becomes "that computer thing you take if you want an academic career", not what you teach all the people who are trying to get a job. CS loses the vast majority of its students, and with it, much of its prestige.

jameshart 11y ago
In general, you're right. But I think you're underselling the value of pure computer science compared to the software engineering discipline. Physicists don't have to go into academia, they can ply their trade applying physics, collaborating with engineers on the cutting edge of semiconductor manufacturing, aeronautics, space exploration, and so on. Before a field is ready to be turned into engineering, the early work is usually done by physicists. Sure, there's hopefully no need to account for novel physics when you're building a bridge - all the theoretical models engineers need have been worked out long ago (by physicists). But if those same engineers were working on a space-elevator? They'd bring along some physicists to help figure out the new stuff they were going to encounter. The same applies to the software domain, too: before something like deep learning can be engineered into regular products, it's going to be computer scientists who work out all the details - and not just in an academic environment, they're doing it in industry, working with engineers to turn theory into practice.

mwildermuth 11y ago

Seems like the trade school component is being at least partially covered by the Bootcamps popping up. And just like some CS programs expect you to then go out and learn how to be a software engineer (usually via jobs), there's an expectation in these Bootcamps that then you'll go out and learn the deeper/broader CS components you missed out on (usually via jobs).