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From: chrisp@regenmeister.uucp (Chris Prael)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <34789@regenmeister.uucp>
Date: 17 Nov 89 22:43:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: regenmei.34789
References: <211@isgtec.UUCP>
Sender: chrisp@regenmeister (Chris Prael)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA
Lines: 21

From article <211@isgtec.UUCP>, by robert@isgtec.UUCP (Robert Osborne):
 
> I see a similiar idea being good in
> computing, where several programmers at a "technician" or community
> college level work with a GOOD computer "scientist", one who has taken
> courses in OS's, compiliers, design theory, etc.   Of course this means
> that community colleges must start training programmers,  so far most
> of the courses at colleges are "language of the week" courses or
> "business oriented" software courses.

This idea has been tried.  About 13 years ago a lot of companies went
very big for the "chief programmer" style of development group set up.
It went out of style very quickly when everyone started to us C to write
code.  The style, or model, was no longer fit the circumstances.

There is another problem with this solution.  If you understand how an
engineer works, it quickly becomes obvious that a computer "scientist"
usually functions as a technician, not as an engineer.  This is not an
effective way to structure a programming team.

Chris Prael