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From: madd@world.std.com (jim frost)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education [engineering, mathematics, and computer science]
Message-ID: <1989Nov16.183033.15112@world.std.com>
Date: 16 Nov 89 18:30:33 GMT
References: <1398@cs.rit.edu> <10072@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Organization: Software Tool & Die
Lines: 22

djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) writes:
>> In article <34754@regenmeister.uucp> chrisp@regenmeister.uucp (Chris Prael) writes:
>>First year calculus in not taught for any reason having anything to do
>>with the education of mathematicians.  It is taught because the teaching
>>of physics and most forms of engineering is crippled without it.  

>I must differ. You can now buy a cheap symbolic calculus calculator
>which will do everything taught in those entry level courses, and more.
>And quicker, and more accurately than you can do it yourself.

And you'll miss out on all the relationships that are obvious if you
know calculus.  Most of my high-school physics finally started making
sense when I took my first calculus course and saw how many of those
formulae were derived.

I would feel better if engineers knew WHY things worked, and I believe
that understanding the mathematics behind the scenes is crucial to
understanding the behavior of real-life systems.

jim frost
software tool & die
madd@std.com