Path: utzoo!attcan!sobmips!uunet!aplcen!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education [engineering, mathematics, and computer science]
Message-ID: <89320.110032UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Date: 16 Nov 89 16:00:32 GMT
References: <1398@cs.rit.edu> <10072@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 20

In article <10072@goofy.megatest.UUCP>, djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones) says:
>
>> 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.
>

But, as Gerry Weinberg says, it is not know-how that counts, it is
know-when.  You can give your symbolic calculus calculator (Maple?
Mathematica?) to a chimp, if you want, but she won't be able to use it
for anything useful.