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From: coatta@utcsri.UUCP (Terry Coatta)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Role of computer science
Message-ID: <3526@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Oct-86 15:58:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.3526
Posted: Fri Oct 24 15:58:43 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Oct-86 16:57:19 EDT
References: <1195@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 75

> 
> Do you want the names of the University of Toronto professors who
> told their classes publically that they should not use lint on their
> C programs?  Not that C is used very much at U of T, these days, but

Nobody in their right mind would not use lint.  It is bad programming
not to.  I don't think I've anywhere claimed that universities
are filled with professors who are good programmers.  I have an idea
of what I think universities should be like, and for the most part
is does not include training professionals.  Universities are places
where knowledge is "made".  Universities train people in the art
of "making knowledge".  There probably is no good place to go
now for training as a professional programmer.  This does not mean
we should give the job to the universities.  New institutions are
required whose purpose is the production of the professionals that
our society requires.

(... horror stories about U of T CSC profs)

I sympathise with the problems you had.  But as I said before I haven't
claimed that universities are filled with good programmers -- I only
hope that through teaching the things that I teach they may eventually
be so.

> chemistry.  Because there is a lot going on there which is more
> useful to know in the real world than 20 lemmas about Turing machines,
> which you can always look up in your textbook if you ever need to know 
> them in the real world.

This is what I disgree most with.  The 20 lemmas about Turing machines
are exactly what the universities should be concerned with teaching.
Its by knowing those lemmas, and countless others, and having been
exposed to a lot of other "boring" theory, that a student may one
day be able to push back the frontiers of computer science.  Just
as English is a means of expression for most of us, so too are programs
an expression of what the computer scientist knows.  Thus, to be a
good scientist he should know how to express himself well -- this
means program well.  This is a concern for both the professional
and the academic.  There are countless other items which are of
principally of concern only to the professional, they will not
help an academic in communicating his ideas to his peers, and I don't
think there is any need for him to waste time learning them.

> applications which are really needed and wanted in industry, but who
> has time to read all the research being done by grad students all
> over the world in order to find the few gems that you personally
> have an application for right now?
> 
> So it just dies.  And in academia people go on to new things which
> have a thesis in them...

This is an odd comment.  All theses are available at the CSC library,
or the main library.  They are catalogued according to topic, so its
pretty easy to find ones that might be relevant to what you are doing.
You don't read every novel thats published in order to find the
ones that interest you do you?  Also much research is available
through journals (ACM, IEEE, etc).  If you want to know what the
CSC world is up to, then read them.  The only reason that an idea
would die is if the professionals didn't bother to read about it.

> -- 
> ``Never string ethernet in the presence of a kitten.''
> Laura Creighton		
> ihnp4!hoptoad!laura  utzoo!hoptoad!laura  sun!hoptoad!laura
> toad@lll-crg.arpa

Terry Coatta
Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!coatta

-- Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the blink again

             Marvin the Paranoid Android