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From: mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Tom!!!!
Message-ID: <921@gilbbs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Sep-86 20:58:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: gilbbs.921
Posted: Sat Sep 20 20:58:19 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Sep-86 22:11:39 EDT
References: <699@sdcc12.UUCP>
Organization: Gil's Place, Santa Rosa CA
Lines: 83
Summary: ~sigh~

In article <699@sdcc12.UUCP>, st122@sdcc12.UUCP (st122) writes:
> Tom, I cannot respond to your wonderful mail because I 
> can't get back down the same path you send mail to me.  Suffice
> it to say that your replies were very funny.  Thank you
> for making my whole day and to some degree proving a point
> to my credit!  You have been a text book example of
> a person I have been illustrating in my book in chapter 3,
> right vs wrong (a general person, not a real one, although
> you came pretty close to the generality) and it's nice to
> see my theory of American culture (well actually just an
> observation) prove itself in reality!  The chapter concerns
> itself with the need for people to justify what they have
> done, what they are doing, and why they have done and are
> doing what they do (even if what they are doing or have
> done is a waste of time or unethical - unethical doesn't  
> apply to you).
> Classic, classic, classic....

  I love it.  Frank has taken my defense of advanced theoretical studies in
a "Computer Sciences" curriculum and turned it into an attack on programmers.
Now, he asserts that I am a classic example of someone justifying my past or
present actions.

1)  Frank, I have not (intentionally, in any case) denigrated the art of
    programming, nor those who would practice it as a profession.  I admire
    good programmers and good programming.  I have merely pointed out that
    the training needed to be a good programmer is *NOT* the same as the
    training needed to be a (good) COmputer Scientist.  You can rant and
    rave all you like about people without fomral training who have developed
    good software, or succeeded in the commerical software market, it doesn't
    change my point at all.  Without the theoretical foundations laid by
    Computer Scientists (and their associates, mathematicians and EEs) the
    "programmers" wouldn't have anything to work with.  It remains the
    theoreticians who lead the way in the development of new computing
    technology and methodology.

2)   I do not have a degree in computer science, or any other discipline.  I
     would very much like to finish my degree in CS, if I could but afford to
     go to school.  I am defending nothing but a concept.

   Why the dogmatic insistence that because things have worked out for you in
a gicen fashion, this fashion is therefore the only acceptable approach?  Why
denigrate those who are interested in the theoretical aspects of computing?

   If you will pardon the observation, I would suggest that your attitude
appears to be compensatory.  You are extremely defensive about not having a
degree, and you seem to feel a strong need to denigrate those that have or 
are persuing such degrees.  Classic, truly classic.

  Note:   I believe that programmers *AND* computer scientists can do a 
*BETTER* job if they have at least a passing familiarity with hardware
considerations.  Yes, a programmer can write reasonable software without 
such familiarity, and for many applications this is acceptable.  But the 
programmer who has a familiarty with hardware considerations is more flexible,
and in a better position not only to produce superior software for those
applications which benefit from such knowledge, but is in a better position to
take advantage of career opportunities because of it.  COmputer scientists 
deal frequently with the application of hardware, and so a familiarity with
hardware realities is virtually essential to them.

   It would seem, Frank, that you are arguing that we should turn out inferior
programmers, ill equipped to produce the wide range of hardware dependent
software we will be needing, in order to simplify the curriculum for a few
lazy, shortsighted individuals.  It would further seem that you are arguing
that there is no point in training any more computer scientists, because you
programmers can take it from here.  (I *WISH* I could put a (-: on that!)

   It is essential that we stop worrying about whether or not the reality of
the computing world is elitist or not, and deal with the necessity of training
highly skilled programmers, *AND* highly skilled computer scientists.  This
requires separate curricula, if it is to be accomplished reasonably.

   The details of those curricula are open to discussion, but they remain a
separate issue, as I see it.

-- 

Disclaimer:  Disclaimer?  DISCLAIMER!? I don't need no stinking DISCLAIMER!!!

tom keller					"She's alive, ALIVE!"
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)