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From: crm@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Charlie Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education
Message-ID: <16315@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 89 01:42:14 GMT
References: <16283@duke.cs.duke.edu> <7289@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: news@duke.cs.duke.edu
Reply-To: crm@romeo.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Organization: Duke University CS Dept.; Durham, NC
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In article <7289@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu writes:
>   My personal experience with OS courses consists of:
>
>      1) Independent study - I read a few textbooks on my own to satisfy my
>         own curiosity.  Having done this, I decided that it was a highly
>         specialized and utterly boring field, and lost all interest.
>
>      2) Undergrad study - compelled to take a course which involved
>         an overview of compilers and operating systems.  Boring and
>         a waste of my time and money, but I needed the degree.
>
>      3) Graduate study - compelled to satisfy a requirement (not
>         clearly expressed in the material I received before enrolling)
>         that I have a course in Operating Systems Implementation.
>         I was so infuriated by the prospect that the department 
>         decided to permit me to gain credit for the course by
>         examination.  Another total waste of time, but again I
>         needed the degree.
>

In other words, you objected so much to what you thought was going to be
in the operating systems courses that you've avoided taking any of them,
and now feel that qualifies you to determine that it is unnecessary?
On the other hand, It seems you've agreed at various points that the 
things like concurrent programming, resources, and file system
architectures are okay....

uh, Bill, have you ever considered going into politics?

As for the rest of the message, well --

there has been a debate on for a very long time about whether a
university should "educate" or "train", which is buzzwordery for "Should
a university equip people to reason, understand, and learn new things,
or should a university teach people to become useful code jocks
instantly on exiting school?"

I enjoy getting an education for its own sake and I'm sometimes a little
anxious to get out of school so I can get on with getting educated.  On
that account, I may be biased.

On the other hand, I always thought I landed out a ways into the
"training spectrum", to the extent that it appeared to me that schools
should at least be preparing bright young engineers for what they would
actually do to the extent that it would require decent knowledge of
english, and some understanding that writing compilers is not what most
people do in the first job out of school.  It probably does me good to
find that I'm not nearly as extreme as I thought.

Rather than go through the whole debate again, I think I should note
that this debate exists; a little reading around should get you into the
thick of it, if you're of a mind to do so.

I do think you're wildly wrong.  In any case, the program you describe
is like the Associate's Degree course I took years and years ago; taught
me to be a pretty good COBOL programmer, taught me to write OS/360 JCL.
Other than a couple of years of $14--$20 K jobs (this was some time ago,
not bad money then) it was damned little use.

Don't bother to answer me now; just remember.  Ten years from now, I'll
bet a fancy dinner that you'll be glad you did get what theory you got,
and sorry you didn't get an OS course when you could have.
Charlie Martin (crm@cs.duke.edu,mcnc!duke!crm) 


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