[Edu-sig] re: College CS courses

[Alan Gauld]

>Computer "Science" is not engineering. Science is 
> not technology. As I see it CS has to do with 
> data structures, algorithms, programming paradigms.

But surely computer science should also be about how 
computers operate - OS and physical hardware etc
After all how can computer science advance if the 
computer scientists don't understand the fundamentals?

Also what about the sciece of computing in the large?
After all physics studies atomic begaviour as well as astronomic behavious,
and all things in between. 
Modern CS seems to have settled for atomic only.

Certainly CS courses used to cover all of those areas.
Now they appear to have become merely programming courses, 
and even there only within very narrow boundaries 
- Java and VB!

This is partoicularly worrying at a time when the 
computing industry is spending less and less time 
writing code. Integration of packages, 
configuration, etc are the largest part of 
modern develpments.

Also, there doesn't appear to be a computer engineering curriculum. Software
engineering and computer engineering 
seem, in practice, to be mere synonims for CS...

It seems a shame that probably bright students will be 
denied job opportunities because companies like mine
(a large telco!) can't afford the time to teach them 
the basics we expect them to know from college. It 
seems likely that we will now stop recruiting CS 
grads and hire job changers or electronic engineering 
grads only.(They know the background and usually have 
some programming too...)

>daniel

Thanks for your comments, they do seem to reflect 
the current CS trends.

Alan G