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From: wex@milano.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Value of Computer Science degree
Message-ID: <1046@milano.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 12:27:20 EST
Article-I.D.: milano.1046
Posted: Thu Feb 27 12:27:20 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 17:13:29 EST
References: <1404@ames.UUCP> <3367@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Sender: wex@milano.UUCP
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Lines: 26
Summary: is anyone producing hackers these days?

In article <3367@umcp-cs.UUCP>, mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
> It seems to me that what you want is someone with the spark and flare of a
> "hacker", but who has computer science education, and who can work in a
> coordinated fashion with others.

Are Universities producing hackers these days?  When I was at UPenn, I was
disappointed to see how the hacker community was shrinking.  In the classes
before mine ('84), there were 10-12 hackers in each class.  In my year there
were about 7, the year after maybe 5, and I didn't see any after that.  At
the same time, the number of CSE majors was increasing, the number of people
taking CS courses was skyrocketing, the quality of the staff, faculty and
facilities were all increasing...

I wonder if there are any new hackers being produced these days.  Has something
happened in the colleges or in society to cause this drop?  Certainly the
rewards are still there (and are even greater in most cases).  But where are
the hackers?

Note, there are still many good programmers, theoreticians, etc. coming out,
but that spark that Charlie mentioned seems to be gone.

-- 
Alan Wexelblat
ARPA: WEX@MCC.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4, seismo, harvard, gatech, pyramid}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!wex
"No wife, no horse, no mustache."