Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2759 comp.software-eng:2619 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!lfcs!nick From: nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: CS education Message-ID: <1325@castle.ed.ac.uk> Date: 6 Dec 89 14:06:53 GMT References: <16315@duke.cs.duke.edu> <7296@hubcap.clemson.edu> <489@cherry5.UUCP> Reply-To: nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) Followup-To: comp.edu Organization: LFCS Enya Admiration Society Lines: 26 In-reply-to: murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy) In article <489@cherry5.UUCP>, murphyn@cell (Neal P. Murphy) writes: >There is an exceptionally >vast difference between `training' and `education'. Animals can be trained >to perform specific tasks. Of course, humans can be trained to perform >specific tasks. That is training. Education involves training. It also >involves much, much more. > ... more ... I think it can be put more succinctly in the context of CS. If a University were to "train" people, we'd have loads of graduates who knew about C and Unix but who were unable to look towards the future. A lot of companies are interested in "training" because they want C/Unix hackers or other people for the "present". They don't look to the future at all (new languages, concurrency, new systems, etc.), until we show them what it might look like, when they start to get interested. Universities should be educating people to have a broader knowledge and encompass (even, shock horror, *develop*) the ideas of the future, not work with the technology we're stuck with today. Nick. -- Nick Rothwell, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh. nick@lfcs.ed.ac.uk !mcvax!ukc!lfcs!nick ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ "You're gonna jump!?" "No, Al. I'm gonna FLY!"