5 ms·

I've been advocating for years that CS departments need to bifurcate. Actual CS classes, the theory-heavy kind, need to be reabsorbed into math departments. Peo

I've been advocating for years that CS departments need to bifurcate. Actual CS classes, the theory-heavy kind, need to be reabsorbed into math departments. People who want to study computer science academically would be better served by getting a math degree. The "how to write software" courses need be absorbed into engineering departments, and maybe the extra discipline gains from actual engineers teaching these courses can start turning software engineers from computer programmers with an inflated job title into actual engineers. Students can then make a choice. Do I get a degree in computer science and be better prepared for academia, essentially being a mathematician who specializes in computation? Or do I get a degree in computer engineering and be better prepared to write reliable software in industry? Of course this distinction exists today, and some universities do offer separate CS and CE degrees, but in practice it seems more often to be smashed together into a catch-all CS degree that may or may not be more theory or practice focused depending on the program.

molteanu 2y ago
Just to add another angle to this: of course you can have CS classes and all that good stuff, but would the businesses only employ these kind of graduates? Or would they spread even thinner to grab market share or increase profits and hire non-experts as a result, for which "easy" and intuitive tools have to be developed and employed? I mean, I see this problem with abstraction, maths, compilers, Lisp, etc, you know, the fundamental stuff. That is, the deeper you go it will become that much harder to find people willing or able to dive deep. So eventually you run out of manpower and that what? Use these "intuitive" tools, probably.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  I mean, this is already a thing today. Programmers who can hack together a CRUD app in <insert popular web dev stack> are a dime a dozen. People who know more about compilers than "oh yeah I got a C in that class" are pretty hard to find. At some point businesses who need "deep experts" have to hire non-experts and invest in training them. This is what I have seen in practice. You don't use the "intuitive" tools, you hire people who are willing to learn and teach them the other tools.
scott_s 2y ago
First, "computer engineering" is already a name for an established discipline. And regarding academic computer scientists, a significant amount of them are on the "systems" side; it would be inaccurate to call their work a specialization of math.
- erik_seaberg 2y ago
  At my university, "computer science" and "computer engineering" were under different departments, and the latter focused less on algorithms and more on embedded digital hardware.
  - dartos 2y ago
    At mine they were the same department and degree, but different course “tracks”
mardifoufs 2y ago
That's still the case for a lot of CS programs. At least mine is still part of the maths department. We also had a distinction between CS and Software engineering, and even between normal CS and a hybrid program between CS and Software engineering.

molteanu 2y ago

Just to add another angle to this: of course you can have CS classes and all that good stuff, but would the businesses only employ these kind of graduates? Or would they spread even thinner to grab market share or increase profits and hire non-experts as a result, for which "easy" and intuitive tools have to be developed and employed? I mean, I see this problem with abstraction, maths, compilers, Lisp, etc, you know, the fundamental stuff. That is, the deeper you go it will become that much harder to find people willing or able to dive deep. So eventually you run out of manpower and that what? Use these "intuitive" tools, probably.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I mean, this is already a thing today. Programmers who can hack together a CRUD app in <insert popular web dev stack> are a dime a dozen. People who know more about compilers than "oh yeah I got a C in that class" are pretty hard to find. At some point businesses who need "deep experts" have to hire non-experts and invest in training them. This is what I have seen in practice. You don't use the "intuitive" tools, you hire people who are willing to learn and teach them the other tools.

scott_s 2y ago

First, "computer engineering" is already a name for an established discipline. And regarding academic computer scientists, a significant amount of them are on the "systems" side; it would be inaccurate to call their work a specialization of math.

erik_seaberg 2y ago
At my university, "computer science" and "computer engineering" were under different departments, and the latter focused less on algorithms and more on embedded digital hardware.
- dartos 2y ago
  At mine they were the same department and degree, but different course “tracks”

mardifoufs 2y ago

That's still the case for a lot of CS programs. At least mine is still part of the maths department. We also had a distinction between CS and Software engineering, and even between normal CS and a hybrid program between CS and Software engineering.