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From: manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Against educational fads
Message-ID: <1990Dec9.180952.6246@cs.ubc.ca>
Date: 9 Dec 90 18:09:52 GMT
References: <39897@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <15459@cs.utexas.edu> <1199@halley.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.ubc.ca (Usenet News)
Organization: Institute for Pure and Applied Eschatology
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In article <1199@halley.UUCP> publius@halley.UUCP@cs.utexas.edu
(Publius) writes: 
>... I have seen some PhDs in
>Computer Science who wrote dissertations on AI yet know little about
>the fundamentals of computer systems.

And I have seen some PhDs in Computer Science who wrote dissertations on
distributed systems yet know little about the fundamentals of AI.
Unfortunately, our field is becoming over-specialized, and most
postgraduate programs have unsatisfactory breadth requirements. What
this has to do with fads is beyond me, though, because virtually all CS
research is fad-driven, via military/governmental/industrial funding,
all of which are less interested in basic research than in short-term
agendas. 

What's more to the point is to recognize that fads are a fundamental
property of basic research (remember cold fusion? Deader than the
Village People), and to ensure that our teaching attempts to reconcile
both the fads of the day with more enduring material. 
--
\    Vincent Manis <manis@cs.ubc.ca>      "There is no law that vulgarity and
 \   Department of Computer Science      literary excellence cannot coexist."
 /\  University of British Columbia                        -- A. Trevor Hodge
/  \ Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5 (604) 228-2394