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From: bjorn@dataio.Dataio.UUCP (Bjorn Benson)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Exams vs. Programming Assignments
Message-ID: <827@dataio.Dataio.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 19:51:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: dataio.827
Posted: Mon Sep 30 19:51:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 06:30:54 EDT
References: <823@dataio.Dataio.UUCP> <6358@duke.UUCP>
Reply-To: bjorn@dataio.UUCP (Bjorn Benson
Organization: Data I/O Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 40

In reference to <6358@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin):

If you think that "...language of and reason for computer science is
programming..." then you are missing some fundamental points:
(1)	Computer science is the study of computers and how they work
	and how to design them and how to use them effeciently and
	and how to build algorithms and how to solve problems, etc.
(2)	Programming is the act of taking a design and translating it
	into BASIC, PASCAL, Modula2, LISP, etc.  This you can learn
	at Bills Bussiness College.
(3)	A good software engineer spends most of his/her time (> 80%)
	designing, documenting, redesigning, debugging, THINKING,
	and only a small amount coding.

Furthermore, I agree with Mr. Martin that if "...a computer scientist 
can graduate without being able to write ... programs..." then there is 
something wrong with the university.  But if all the young man/woman can do 
is to write programs then he/she should have gone to Bills Bussiness 
College and saved $20,000.

That brings up my biggest complaint against undergraduate computer science 
educations is that they teach you "programming"... they teach you how to edit 
a file under VMS... they teach you how to write in assembly language...
they teach you what a barrel shifter is... they teach (etc.), but they 
don't require any theory classes.  

They don't require a class on design and analysis of algorithms.  They 
don't teach the thoery of LALR parsers, they don't teach...

So you graduate, and you know specifics: 
	1. Unix
	2. recursive descent
	3. quick-sort
	4. linked lists.
But if the real world doesn't want linked lists then you 
are out of luck -- no one taught you how to THINK, much less
about computer science.  You are a Programmer.

				Opinions from the keyboard of
					Bjorn Benson


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