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> it needs to be fun and have immediate feedback involved (ideally visual) This is so huge - it's not just that it's exciting for students and a more rewarding

by ytpete 11y ago

> it needs to be fun and have immediate feedback involved (ideally visual) This is so huge - it's not just that it's exciting for students and a more rewarding way to show friends & family what you're studying. It's also a great overview of the field: AI, graphics, data structures, performance, network programming, discrete mathematics, concurrency, on and on. You never know what's going to resonate with someone and get them excited about pursuing CS further. But it's also hard to get through to the CS academia establishment on this. I worked with a professor who struggled for years to get a game programming course accepted by his department. They kept rebuffing him because "games aren't serious." (He eventually left and started a very successful game programming track at a different school). This was an Ivy League school, and they also seemed overly fixated on theory over practice. I think they had the mentality that in depth hands-on experience equals vocational school. I hope more of the teaching programs coming online now understand how engaging it is to just make fun things with code - and how it can still be a great learning experience as well.

newy 11y ago
> I worked with a professor who struggled for years to get a game programming course Was this at Cornell? Sounds familiar.
dopeboy 11y ago
One one hand I get academia and on the other hand I don't. They might argue because it's computer science there should an emphasis on theory over the practice. And while the practice (individual technologies and languages) change rapidly, the concepts moreorless stay the same. There are also software engineering and informatics majors that bring in more practice. On the other hand, most employers want kids from the "hard" disciplines. And academia knows this and actively promotes themselves based on these metrics. So why not be a little forward thinking and integrate more practical skills into the curriculum like version control, more team projects, more practice with web development, etc? The whole holier-than-thou mentality that you reference is immature and has got to go.

by ytpete 11y ago

newy 11y ago

> I worked with a professor who struggled for years to get a game programming course Was this at Cornell? Sounds familiar.

dopeboy 11y ago

One one hand I get academia and on the other hand I don't. They might argue because it's computer science there should an emphasis on theory over the practice. And while the practice (individual technologies and languages) change rapidly, the concepts moreorless stay the same. There are also software engineering and informatics majors that bring in more practice. On the other hand, most employers want kids from the "hard" disciplines. And academia knows this and actively promotes themselves based on these metrics. So why not be a little forward thinking and integrate more practical skills into the curriculum like version control, more team projects, more practice with web development, etc? The whole holier-than-thou mentality that you reference is immature and has got to go.