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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse
Subject: Re: teaching computer science
Message-ID: <558@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Tue, 25-Feb-86 16:45:16 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.558
Posted: Tue Feb 25 16:45:16 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 07:44:53 EST
References: <204@bu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 44
Xref: watmath net.college:1136 net.cse:624

In article <204@bu-cs.UUCP> bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vince Manis)
>>The average introductory student has no longterm commitment to computer
>>science, so one ought to teach him/her a directly usable skill; that means
>>teaching a language s/he has heard of.
>
>This is the attitude I object to that leaves us nowhere in Computer Science
>Education. I believe one has to abandon the job training mentality and just
>teach their subject on the sole assumption that everyone in the room is there
>to build a foundation for computer science. If that necessitates opening
>a different course for 'programming', so be it.

I am writing a long flame on this point for net.cse.  (I started arguing
this one in net.singles...)  But, synchronisity again -- everybody
starts talking about what I am thinking about as soon as I start thinking.

If you walk to your local undergrad csc terminal room, you will find that
the bulk of people there are not there because they have a personal
commitment to thinking -- especially about computer science.  They are
there to get ``job training''.  While I think that there is nothing wrong
with job training, I don't think that it should be taught *at university*.

You end up short changing everybody.  There are wonderful thinkers who
can't hack the ``directly usuable skill'' section of csc courses and
who flunk out.  There are people who are totally uninterested in the
theory of computer science, who flunk out.  And you end up with people
who were really interested in computer science theory who are so
burned out by the time they get through university they don't really
want to think any more.  And, finally, you get the people who have
great degrees but still can't program to any professional standard.

I think that this comes of trying to be all things for all people.
(I also think that it comes of taking government money -- once you
start taking it you can no longer afford to be called elitist.  But
people with a personal commitment to thinking for its own sake are
rare, and an institution that caters to them must, by definition, be
elitist.)

I have cross-posted this to net.cse.
-- 
Laura Creighton		
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