3 ms·

You seriously need to appreciate the distinction between CS and coding. Let me break it down: computer science is really difficult. It's not the CS jobs that go

You seriously need to appreciate the distinction between CS and coding. Let me break it down: computer science is really difficult. It's not the CS jobs that go to India. It's the coding jobs. Also, here's something you many not know. K-12 CS education in India is actually pretty good. My school started computer science in the fifth grade. Internalizing the Turing machine (even if it is not formally explained) at that age gives you a huge advantage should you decide to become a computer scientist later. So how come India doesn't produce good computer scientists? Actually we do. If you look at the top CS conferences, the proportion of Indians is pretty high compared to the number of people we graduate. It's just that Indians choose to move to the U.S. to do research because there are no good government funded research programs in India. Next up, innovation and design. I think PG pretty much answered that one. It doesn't matter if you have talented people, if you don't have a nurturing environment like Silicon Valley, it's just not gonna happen. There's not much incentive for an Indian firm to innovate because our business climate is just so bad. Success depends more on how well you can bribe government officials than on innovation. That leaves coding jobs. If you teach everyone how to code, of course you're going to have a lot of coders who aren't particularly good designers or computer scientists. That's what we have. Many of my friends who are actually good tried to kick it in one of the outsourcing firms, couldn't take the boredom, and left to go to grad school or do something else. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. To summarize: K-12 CS education is not hard, and it's important for producing good computer scientists. You just have to be prepared to accept that not every kid will be interested.

jmtame 18y ago
Computer Science is a discipline applied to something, such as doing coding at a startup. Most CS students turn out to be coders. Not many people, for example, are going to go off and write new compilers and program in MIPS assembly. Most will end up doing the typical Java and C/C++ development stuff. My roommate for example doesn't have any interest in AI or machine learning or data mining (although I'm not necessarily referring to those fields as being easily outsourced). The complaint I'm making is one that has been voiced already by many universities, including my own (Illinois.edu). It's the reason schools like Olin College are getting built and considered by Newsweek and Kaplan as "one of America's next Ivy League schools." It has nothing to do with computer science being difficult, it's because it's not interesting. This isn't about how to distinguish CS from coding, it's about fixing the outdated curriculum from the Cold War when we basically said "forget drawing and practice in the Computer Science and Engineering degrees, we're strictly math science and analysis now." Java and C/C++ development is what most CS students will end up doing (coding). Those are the people I'm talking about; I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. If you think success is all about bribery, you (as defined by Michael Arrington) have a losing attitude and have no place in Silicon Valley. Not my words, but Mr. Arrington's. And I for one side with him in saying that hard work produces more results than flattery. My point is this: nobody wants to learn coding with zero application. I'm saying that higher education doesn't have it right because 50% of students dropout, so you're going to try and move it into k-12 and expect better results? How on earth do you propose to do that exactly?
- mamama 18y ago
  This is an interesting exchange between Mark Guzdial and Alan Kay: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKVUNBWIDAS9YQ http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKVUNBWIDAS9YQ The focal point of the argument seems to be whether CS "education" and "vocational training" should be separated. P.S. Nice to see another UIUC student. I've been accepted there and would possibly end up enrolling unless I get into some long shot universities. How is the scene there?
  - jmtame 18y ago
    You are coming in at a good time, actually. We are just now launching the iFoundry program, keep your eyes on it. E-mail me sometime, I'm always interested in meeting people from HN at school. Check out my profile.

jmtame 18y ago

Computer Science is a discipline applied to something, such as doing coding at a startup. Most CS students turn out to be coders. Not many people, for example, are going to go off and write new compilers and program in MIPS assembly. Most will end up doing the typical Java and C/C++ development stuff. My roommate for example doesn't have any interest in AI or machine learning or data mining (although I'm not necessarily referring to those fields as being easily outsourced). The complaint I'm making is one that has been voiced already by many universities, including my own (Illinois.edu). It's the reason schools like Olin College are getting built and considered by Newsweek and Kaplan as "one of America's next Ivy League schools." It has nothing to do with computer science being difficult, it's because it's not interesting. This isn't about how to distinguish CS from coding, it's about fixing the outdated curriculum from the Cold War when we basically said "forget drawing and practice in the Computer Science and Engineering degrees, we're strictly math science and analysis now." Java and C/C++ development is what most CS students will end up doing (coding). Those are the people I'm talking about; I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. If you think success is all about bribery, you (as defined by Michael Arrington) have a losing attitude and have no place in Silicon Valley. Not my words, but Mr. Arrington's. And I for one side with him in saying that hard work produces more results than flattery. My point is this: nobody wants to learn coding with zero application. I'm saying that higher education doesn't have it right because 50% of students dropout, so you're going to try and move it into k-12 and expect better results? How on earth do you propose to do that exactly?

mamama 18y ago
This is an interesting exchange between Mark Guzdial and Alan Kay: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKVUNBWIDAS9YQ http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNKVUNBWIDAS9YQ The focal point of the argument seems to be whether CS "education" and "vocational training" should be separated. P.S. Nice to see another UIUC student. I've been accepted there and would possibly end up enrolling unless I get into some long shot universities. How is the scene there?
- jmtame 18y ago
  You are coming in at a good time, actually. We are just now launching the iFoundry program, keep your eyes on it. E-mail me sometime, I'm always interested in meeting people from HN at school. Check out my profile.