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Great rebuttal to an originally insane WSJ anti-thought piece. Some awkward points from the original WSJ article: University computer science departments are

by seiji 11y ago

Great rebuttal to an originally insane WSJ anti-thought piece. Some awkward points from the original WSJ article: University computer science departments are in miserable shape: 10 years behind in a field that changes every 10 minutes. When did the WSJ author have time to sample the 4-year curriculum from every CS department? The author complains about "no iOS development" in universities. There's always a balance to strike between being a trade school and a knowledge institution. It's not the place for a university to pre-train your employees exactly to your specifications. You probably don't need the pumping lemma to develop Angry Angry Badgers XXV, but you still need exposure to how and why everything can even work the way it does. The rebuttal post makes a great point about how, if iOS development is so important, universities should have been teaching Flash development extensively up until about five years ago. That would have worked out well for everybody. Computer science departments prepare their students for academic or research careers and spurn jobs that actually pay money. Unsubstantiated fuff. Computer Science departments are the only departments expected to churn out semi-productive workers by their second semester of study. Not many pre-med majors are getting hired as junior doctor interns their 6th month into study. They teach students how to design an operating system, but not how to work with a real, live development team. Operating system design courses focus heavily on practical data structures and the reality of programming physical hardware. But, counter argument, it's all invalid in the cloud! As for "real, live development team," that's one of the benefits of going to a school. You get to work in different project groups over the course of a few years to figure out how things work, how other people work in a group, and how you yourself respond to group dynamics. Mr. Gelernter is the CEO of the tech startup Dittach. Based on his rant, I'm assuming Dittach is just a thin glue layer on top of a dozen open source libraries with no actual development involved?

Gigablah 11y ago
I see "thin glue layer" and laugh sadly.
TheCowboy 11y ago
I think there's a balance to be struck. People shouldn't limit their search to people with the correct credentials, and people shouldn't discount education. Hiring is hard, and likely will continue to be hard. A computer science degree tends to be about 2 full semesters worth of college credits, or one year of education. Calling a 4-year degree a "computer science degree" is the first misnomer. It is still a liberal arts degree with a major in computer science. Of course one shouldn't expect a fresh grad to have all of the needed skills for commercial software development if they stuck only to their coursework. Internships help, but the intern is at the mercy of the company when it comes to what they get out of it. Even self-taught people can't learn everything in a single year, and have to specialize if they want to find employment, limiting their job opportunities and appeal to employers. Specialization can also increase their expiration date if they picked the wrong stack, but can increase their appeal if they know the right technology at the right time. People also don't differentiate between self-taught programmers who already have a liberal arts degree, and those who do not. What percentage of coding bootcamp graduates have no college education, and what results do they see? If companies want people who have all the skills and experience your company demands, then pay more for senior developers instead of expecting people fresh out of college to fit that role.

by seiji 11y ago

Gigablah 11y ago

I see "thin glue layer" and laugh sadly.

TheCowboy 11y ago

I think there's a balance to be struck. People shouldn't limit their search to people with the correct credentials, and people shouldn't discount education. Hiring is hard, and likely will continue to be hard. A computer science degree tends to be about 2 full semesters worth of college credits, or one year of education. Calling a 4-year degree a "computer science degree" is the first misnomer. It is still a liberal arts degree with a major in computer science. Of course one shouldn't expect a fresh grad to have all of the needed skills for commercial software development if they stuck only to their coursework. Internships help, but the intern is at the mercy of the company when it comes to what they get out of it. Even self-taught people can't learn everything in a single year, and have to specialize if they want to find employment, limiting their job opportunities and appeal to employers. Specialization can also increase their expiration date if they picked the wrong stack, but can increase their appeal if they know the right technology at the right time. People also don't differentiate between self-taught programmers who already have a liberal arts degree, and those who do not. What percentage of coding bootcamp graduates have no college education, and what results do they see? If companies want people who have all the skills and experience your company demands, then pay more for senior developers instead of expecting people fresh out of college to fit that role.