[Edu-sig] re: College CS courses

[Alan Gauld]

HI Matthias,

> you shouldn't conclude from a single response, 
> which comes from the .net world and not from 
> the .edu world, that colleges ignore what's happening
> in the real world. 

I hope not.

> I believe that Computer Science is about the 
> construction of software. 

I guess thats where I see a movement in CS. It used to be 
about much more: about the ability to compute with a 
machine. It included the operation and networking of 
computing hosts as well as the construction of software. 
It was also concerned about novel ways to compute - for 
example large parallel arrays - nobody seems to teach
these anymore and yet in industry they are more widely 
used than ever, but with an ever decreasing number of 
grads who know even what they are, far less how to use 
them...

At a very primitive level we had a recent (successful) 
entrant who insisted on using a well known IDE for 
his development environment. Everyone else urged him 
not to, but he insisted it was more "efficient" than 
our old fashioned makefiles.

His first compile took 17 hours to complete - the 
project consists of 27,000 C++ files... The makefiles 
do it in less than 2 hours. Why? Because the 
makefiles distribute the build over 10 servers with 
only the final linkage on the host... It was impossible 
to replicate that on his IDE but it took a very long 
time for him to come around...

Now I don't expect colleges to simulate that with 
27,000 files but the principles could be tought, 
illustrated and even demonstrated surely? How many 
grads today even know how to write a makefile that 
could distribute a build?

> ...
> This is a random ordering and covers the essentials. 

Sure. I'm glad to see that those things are being 
covered somewhere.

>I also believe that a CS program should dedicate the 
> first three years of an education (the US assumes 
> a four-year program) 

Scotland likewise, I think the rest of the UK is 
3 years...

> We cannot truly emulate the industrial context 
> that (large) companies assume.

Sure, But neither can the Mechanical Engineering dept 
emulate building the Brooklyn bridge. Nor most physics departments afford a
particle accelerator, but they 
still teach the principles on the assumption that 
their students will someday be doing those things. 
I think many CS departments have lost sight of the 
fact that industrial computing requires more than 
a kind of super PC user/hobbyist.

[And with due respect to CP4E, its a great goal to have everyone programming
literate, just as it is to have 
everyone math literate but the CS programs need to 
aim higher IMHO]

>What we need is that people like you come to 
> universities and speak out. 

I used to go to both Glasgow and Edinburgh universities 
as a guest lecturer on "Delivery Management" - all the activities on a project
that are not about "developing 
software". (The notes are in an article on informIT.com 
if anyone is interested...) The original lecturers were 
keen and it got a good response from the students but 
last year one university changed lecturer and 
despite making the offer we have not been asked back... 
maybe I'm just not a good enough speaker of course :-)

> Tell them to start with Scheme or Python. 
> Tell them to bring Java in when students know how to
> program. 

One reason I wrote my online tutor and book was 
that too many of the summer break grads we get 
think that they can only programme in language 
X, I was trying to show that programming is 
pretty much the same in any language (especially 
if they are imperative in style).

> about the process (not management). They may just 
> believe it if industry representatives like you 
> say so again and again.

We are trying and despite my pessimism will doubtless 
continue to interview, it just seems to be an 
increasing fruitless exercise :-(

Thanks to all for their responses. I don't want to 
clog the list, if anyone wants to continue/respond 
offline feel free to mail direct to:

agauld@crosswinds.net

I feel better having vented some steam ;-)

Alan G.