Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!hropus!ka From: ka@hropus.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Titles Message-ID: <252@hropus.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 16:19:10 EST Article-I.D.: hropus.252 Posted: Fri Feb 7 16:19:10 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 13-Feb-86 14:53:18 EST References: <4514@kestrel.ARPA> <3407@nsc.UUCP> <4588@kestrel.ARPA> Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 65 Keywords: Computer Science, Bullshit about degrees Cc: ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (In case you don't read net.cse regularly) There has been a discussion in net.singles of all places about the value of computer science degrees. It started in <128@ttidcc.UUCP> when Jerry Hollombe wrote: > More seriously, I've met a wide assortment of programmers in the last few > years and I haven't noticed that programming ability is significantly > related to possession of a BSCS degree. Note I didn't say inversely > related. I said _not_ releated. I will respond to one of the most recent articles: > In article <3407@nsc.UUCP>, freak@nsc.UUCP (Curt Mayer) writes: > > It has been my experience that CS professors haven't the foggiest idea what > > the industry needs. [...] > > A random hacker grade programmer of high school age is worth 5 brand new > > CS degree-oids. > > Note that ALL the awesomely hot programmers I know do not have degrees. > > I don't know whether this is a joke or not. > It is silly, but not very funny. It gives people the misleading > impression that you can get far in computer science without anything > but coding talent. This will be true for a very few. Or it will > restrict you to working for banks and job shops. > It's unlikely to get you working for Sun, Symbolics, Xenon, > Teknowledge, Intellicorp, SRI,....... > It's also an implied insult. Why do people write such things? > > Peter Ladkin I'm not sure I understand what Peter is getting at, perhaps not all that familiar with the companies Peter lists. Sun has done things like porting UNIX to their machine and making various enhancements. One way to learn to do this is to read the UNIX kernel source code. This will take a little longer for someone who doesn't know anything about operating systems when s/he starts; fortunately I started reading the UNIX source code well before I started hacking the kernel. Of course there are people who are not capable of just sitting down and reading the UNIX source. Is there hope for such people, or are they doomed to spend their days working for banks and job shops if they decide to enter the profession? When Peter disbarrages coding talent, he is probably using the word in somewhat narrow sense. Of course you cannot code a program effectively unless you have some idea of how to design and structure a program; nor does a person get to be a hacker grade programmer without learning something about human interfaces. "Coding talent" in a broad sense covers everything that is required to write programs; if understood in this sense, "coding talent" is what industry hires people for. Is compter science broader than this? Yes, the article was an implied insult to CS professors since it implies that they are rather useless, but that's no reason why the issues raised should not be discussed. My first college course was a graduate level compiler construction course that I managed to sneak into. Several students in the course found it rather tough even though they had under- graduate degrees in computer science. So of what value is an undergrad- uate CS program? One answer is that it teaches a fair amount of mathematics. But what can it teach about computer science per se? And is this teachable to a person who won't pick it up fairly quickly if given a UNIX system to hack on for a while? Flame if you will, but try to put a little content in your flames. Kenneth Almquist ihnp4!houxm!hropus!ka (official name) ihnp4!opus!ka (shorter path)