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To expand on that, and maybe my view is a bit too traditional, but my understanding is that universities ought to prepare you to become a scientist. At least t

To expand on that, and maybe my view is a bit too traditional, but my understanding is that universities ought to prepare you to become a scientist. At least that's how it was historically. They are not meant to be "vocational training plus" or to subsidize the industry by training the work force for them. (It might be different for colleges, I'm mainly speaking from a European perspective.) I know times have changed, but I don't think git should be taught in a university-level computer science course. You teach graph theory and then many operations in git should become clear after reading the documentation. I don't think any implementation-specific skills should be taught, unless you use it as an example, like Java or C++ to teach OOP. Instead, you teach broad concepts that underpin all of modern computing. Isn't there a saying along the lines of "computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes"? When I was at university twenty years ago people were still claiming you could easily pass a computer science program without ever touching a computer.

the_snooze 2y ago
I'm a researcher in one of the more "applied" subfields of CS (security and privacy), and we absolutely use standard software engineering tools day-to-day. You're not going to be a productive member of a research group if you don't know how to navigate the tools of the trade. Research isn't about using Git, Bash, or Docker, but you're dead weight if you can't wield those. Here's a serious research venue asking for technical artifacts for reproducability: shell scripts, VMs, Docker containers, configs, READMEs, etc. https://petsymposium.org/artifacts.php https://petsymposium.org/artifacts.php
- deleted 2y ago
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- kaycey2022 2y ago
  Don't university research groups primarily produce papers? Producing "technical artifacts for reproducability" must be a new thing (if at all).
  - the_snooze 2y ago
    It is a fairly new thing in the security/privacy academic research community (probably just in the last 5 years or so, and still spreading), but a very welcome one. Not only does it encourage reproducability, but it also helps authors have a broader impact if their work is in evaluating ideas and offering practical proofs-of-concept that other people can easily build upon. It's all optional for the venues I deal with, yet lots of people do turn in artifacts for their accepted papers. For all we know, the next Let's Encrypt (itself partially a University of Michigan project) could start as a submitted artifact. Other calls for artifacts if you're curious: - https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/call-for-artifacts https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/call-for-... - https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2025/submisions/call-for-artifacts https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2025/submisions/call-for-... - https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2024/call-for/call-for-artifacts.html https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2024/call-for/call-for-artifac...
coredog64 2y ago
> You teach graph theory and then many operations in git should become clear after reading the documentation Never have I needed to understand the underlying Merkle tree implementation of git to use it. Instead, I need to know when to branch, how to reset, and what makes up a good commit working set and message. All of this would be the same if I was sullying myself by learning vocational skills or just being able to effectively and efficiently work by myself on a research project.

the_snooze 2y ago

I'm a researcher in one of the more "applied" subfields of CS (security and privacy), and we absolutely use standard software engineering tools day-to-day. You're not going to be a productive member of a research group if you don't know how to navigate the tools of the trade. Research isn't about using Git, Bash, or Docker, but you're dead weight if you can't wield those. Here's a serious research venue asking for technical artifacts for reproducability: shell scripts, VMs, Docker containers, configs, READMEs, etc. https://petsymposium.org/artifacts.php https://petsymposium.org/artifacts.php

deleted 2y ago
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kaycey2022 2y ago
Don't university research groups primarily produce papers? Producing "technical artifacts for reproducability" must be a new thing (if at all).
- the_snooze 2y ago
  It is a fairly new thing in the security/privacy academic research community (probably just in the last 5 years or so, and still spreading), but a very welcome one. Not only does it encourage reproducability, but it also helps authors have a broader impact if their work is in evaluating ideas and offering practical proofs-of-concept that other people can easily build upon. It's all optional for the venues I deal with, yet lots of people do turn in artifacts for their accepted papers. For all we know, the next Let's Encrypt (itself partially a University of Michigan project) could start as a submitted artifact. Other calls for artifacts if you're curious: - https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/call-for-artifacts https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/call-for-... - https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2025/submisions/call-for-artifacts https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2025/submisions/call-for-... - https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2024/call-for/call-for-artifacts.html https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2024/call-for/call-for-artifac...

coredog64 2y ago

> You teach graph theory and then many operations in git should become clear after reading the documentation Never have I needed to understand the underlying Merkle tree implementation of git to use it. Instead, I need to know when to branch, how to reset, and what makes up a good commit working set and message. All of this would be the same if I was sullying myself by learning vocational skills or just being able to effectively and efficiently work by myself on a research project.