4 ms·

Out of all the comments on HN, this is the one I disagree with the most (respectfully of course). The essence of your comment is that it doesn't matter what yo

by tsally 18y ago

Out of all the comments on HN, this is the one I disagree with the most (respectfully of course). The essence of your comment is that it doesn't matter what you study, as long as you know how to think. The implication is that CS is a major inherently filled with drones, who are not learning how to think. I can't speak for other schools, but at UIUC that's simply not true. I imagine the same goes for other top 5 programs. What you most certainly ran into was a program that doesn't treat Computer Science like a Science. From the tone of your post, it seems like you aren't either. When you say "work in CS", it seems like you mean developing software. I apologize if I am misinterpreting your words. =)

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Well, bravo for you for being enthusiastic about your field! If the original poster had more people like you around he might not be so depressed. Feel free to argue that the original poster should transfer to UIUC, which would doubtless be a great idea. Yeah, I misspoke when I used "work in CS" as a synonym for "developing software". (Though I suppose I could argue that all of us who write software are "doing CS"... some are just doing it with more ignorance than others. Of course, by that logic, my cat "does physics" all the time...) I am aware that real CS exists. I don't actually know much of it, and while I enjoy picking up bits and pieces as I go along and occasionally sleep with a copy of Knuth Vol 1 under my pillow it would be nice to have had an actual grounding in the subject. Alas, I didn't encounter anyone who was really able to explain what the hell the field was all about until I was more than halfway through grad school in a different subject. I sampled the CS department as a freshman in college, both the intro course and an assembly course, and all I saw was a roomful of people struggling to write the Pascal programs that I had taught myself to write in middle school. (If only the web had been invented slightly earlier... or my university's intro course had involved SICP instead of Pascal. Ah, what might have been. Incidentally, I forgot to ask the original poster: Have you read SICP yet? It's free on the web now!) But the reason I'm being harsh on true-blue Computer Science in this thread is that I'm in coaching mode. I'm trying to give advice to a guy who either can't find the real CS at his school or can't understand why he should care. Perhaps he should just look harder, but I trust you and every other CS major in this thread to convince him to do that. That's your job. I feel that it's my job to point out that there really are other things than CS in college, and perhaps he should try some of them before he just quits.
- tsally 18y ago
  That sounds fair. :-)

by tsally 18y ago

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Well, bravo for you for being enthusiastic about your field! If the original poster had more people like you around he might not be so depressed. Feel free to argue that the original poster should transfer to UIUC, which would doubtless be a great idea. Yeah, I misspoke when I used "work in CS" as a synonym for "developing software". (Though I suppose I could argue that all of us who write software are "doing CS"... some are just doing it with more ignorance than others. Of course, by that logic, my cat "does physics" all the time...) I am aware that real CS exists. I don't actually know much of it, and while I enjoy picking up bits and pieces as I go along and occasionally sleep with a copy of Knuth Vol 1 under my pillow it would be nice to have had an actual grounding in the subject. Alas, I didn't encounter anyone who was really able to explain what the hell the field was all about until I was more than halfway through grad school in a different subject. I sampled the CS department as a freshman in college, both the intro course and an assembly course, and all I saw was a roomful of people struggling to write the Pascal programs that I had taught myself to write in middle school. (If only the web had been invented slightly earlier... or my university's intro course had involved SICP instead of Pascal. Ah, what might have been. Incidentally, I forgot to ask the original poster: Have you read SICP yet? It's free on the web now!) But the reason I'm being harsh on true-blue Computer Science in this thread is that I'm in coaching mode. I'm trying to give advice to a guy who either can't find the real CS at his school or can't understand why he should care. Perhaps he should just look harder, but I trust you and every other CS major in this thread to convince him to do that. That's your job. I feel that it's my job to point out that there really are other things than CS in college, and perhaps he should try some of them before he just quits.

tsally 18y ago
That sounds fair. :-)