I think this is probably dependent on the college/university in question and is not necessarily universal. The author is right to think it's a problem, and I

I think this is probably dependent on the college/university in question and is not necessarily universal. The author is right to think it's a problem, and I think many of the examples show weaknesses in those professors or departments. Debugging strikes me as a much more complicated skill and process than using commas or many other writing skills. Using commas is largely memorizing and internalizing the rules. They are much simpler than debugging, and fixing comma usage in prose is a one person job, it does not necessarily require multiple people brainstorming like debugging can. I went to Rensselaer, our CS department was more closely aligned with the Math department, unlike some schools where CS is more closely aligned with the engineering school and the Computer Systems or EE programs. So we did have a very high load of required theory classes where practice like debugging was not relevant. But we had a parallel track of required classes which were much more hands on along with a track of elective courses, and there was ample opportunity in those classes for learning debugging. We were often in a lab sitting at the computer working on assignments with the professor + grad students circulating helping with problems, and this is where hands on debugging was taught. I suppose I am not a good example though either. I'm basically a second generation software engineer. I got my first lessons in debugging with my father when I was 10 years old and I had made errors typing BASIC program listings in from books or magazines I'd grabbed at the library. So I had a solid 8 years of struggling with debugging before I ever got to college. My debugging skills were tested because in a lot of cases I didn't yet understand important programming concepts needed to solve a problem and I was then trying to solve the problem with a limited set of tools. (E.x. not understanding dynamic memory until I was around 18, so I did lots of things with only static allocation of memory, making some problems much harder.) In any case it became a pleasant and unpleasant skill. I can often debug problems so quickly that managers figure out I might be better to look at a problem than the person who wrote the module that is creating an emergency. I get credit, but I always feel like I'm being punished. I can agree though, this is not something to be taught in a big lecture hall with 100+ students in the class as that certainly would derail the class. It's for smaller breakout sessions where the teacher:student ratio is much smaller. If breakout sessions aren't a thing maybe the program isn't that great.