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Urgh. I personally think one of the underlying tenets of his argument is false -- there is NO ambiguity over what Computer Science is, at least not in the way

Urgh. I personally think one of the underlying tenets of his argument is false -- there is NO ambiguity over what Computer Science is, at least not in the way that he's suggesting. CS is and should be an academic pursuit coupled with a strong mathematical background. CS is about understanding the underlying principles of the what, why and how of computation. A couple of kids from Stanford didn't create Google because they blindly hacked something together. Seriously, check out their paper on PageRank. A well-understood analogy is the difference between physics and mechanical engineering: the physicist seeks to advance knowledge of the principles that govern our universe, the ME applies that knowledge in practical applications. A direct comparison should be drawn between Computer Science and Software Engineering. I've always maintained that students solely interested in learning how to program should be enrolled in a Software Engineering associate's degree program, not 4-year Computer Science. It would be a practical rather than theoretical education.

kingatomic 16y ago
s/his argument/the Academic\/Applied dichotomy/ I noticed that he doesn't really present the argument as his own, just reporting what he's seeing.
- deanchen 16y ago
  Hey OP here, Just wanted to point out that it was my original intention to express a more nuanced view regarding the role of math in computer science both in industry and academia but decide to save that for another day after I realized the professors' arguments were very interesting on their own and that they deserve to stand on their own. Part of the reason I went through such great lengths to analyze the multitude of arguments from the entire thread was to point out that they were missing the bigger picture, which I'm hoping to discuss in a later post. Also wanted to point out that top U.S. universities do not offer associate degrees in software engineering, in most cases it's a course or two lumped under cs; if you want to go in to software engineering you must go through the cs curriculum that is related/implied by my last point where the professors were concerned that just the image of computer science as a mathy subject scare students away from participating in the computing industry.

kingatomic 16y ago

s/his argument/the Academic\/Applied dichotomy/ I noticed that he doesn't really present the argument as his own, just reporting what he's seeing.

deanchen 16y ago
Hey OP here, Just wanted to point out that it was my original intention to express a more nuanced view regarding the role of math in computer science both in industry and academia but decide to save that for another day after I realized the professors' arguments were very interesting on their own and that they deserve to stand on their own. Part of the reason I went through such great lengths to analyze the multitude of arguments from the entire thread was to point out that they were missing the bigger picture, which I'm hoping to discuss in a later post. Also wanted to point out that top U.S. universities do not offer associate degrees in software engineering, in most cases it's a course or two lumped under cs; if you want to go in to software engineering you must go through the cs curriculum that is related/implied by my last point where the professors were concerned that just the image of computer science as a mathy subject scare students away from participating in the computing industry.