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From: debray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Titles
Message-ID: <49@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 09:45:50 EST
Article-I.D.: sbcs.49
Posted: Fri Feb  7 09:45:50 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Feb-86 07:27:44 EST
References: <4514@kestrel.ARPA> <3407@nsc.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science Dept, SUNY@Stony Brook
Lines: 41

When people ask me what I do, my usual response is "Oh, I play with
computers.  How about you?"  I don't need a polysyllabic title to prop
up my self-esteem.

curt:

> It has been my experience that CS professors haven't the foggiest idea what
> the industry needs.

If by "what the industry needs" you refer to people who write COBOL
applications, you might be right.  But then, I wouldn't think much of any
CS prof who was overly concerned with the mechanics of coding payroll
packages, anyway.  Maybe this comes as a surprise, but University CS
curricula are intended to teach, _not_ Basic or Cobol or Ada or whatever,
but concepts that apply irrespective of the language or machine being used.
You should see the contortions some sociologists-turned-programmers go
through to read in a command from a user and make sense of it, not knowing
how much simpler some knowledge of parsing theory would make it.

> I have seen to many 'Instant' CS degree programmers who need a year or so
> of ramp up time in a programming job before they even produce line 1 of
> useable, production quality code.

(I assume you meant "too many ...")

No doubt.  The Law of Large Numbers is a wondrous thing!  So what's your
point?  Are you suggesting that these people would have needed less startup
time if they hadn't had CS degrees?

> Note that ALL the awesomely hot programmers I know do not have degrees.

Hmmm, maybe that says something!  Have you tried expanding your horizons?

[ Shouldn't this be in net.cse or something? ]
-- 
Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook

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