Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!purdue!tlh
From: tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L. Hausmann)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Summary: Balanced Emphasis...
Message-ID: <3702@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 88 18:55:24 GMT
References: <1522@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <364@abcom.ATT.COM> <10771@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 61

In article <10771@cgl.ucsf.EDU>, seibel@cgl.ucsf.edu (George Seibel%Kollman) writes:
> In article <3684@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L. Hausmann) writes:
> >In article <364@abcom.ATT.COM>, rgsmeb@abcom.ATT.COM (Michel Behna) writes:
> >> From article <1522@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, by windley@iris.ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley):
> >> > I couldn't care less what language my students need to know to get a job
> >> > with IBM.  They should know how to program, they should be able to deal
> >> > with abstraction, they should be able to design algorithms, but they
> >> > shouldn't necessarily learn JCL, COBOL (ugh!), or even C because that's
> >> > what HP wants.  
> >> > Phil Windley
> >> You may not care but as someone who graduated and had to find a job I think
> >> you are wrong. Academia has the singular privilege of being able to afford
> >> to hire unknowledgeable (read unskilled) people and training them.
> >
> >Do you also think it is a Univerisity's place to train people for industrial
> >jobs?  If you want to learn SKILLS while in school, internships and coop ...
> 
> I'll side with Michel on this one.  The University seems to have cornered
> the market on prestige and lofty knowledge, but to put knowledge to work
> and do something practical with it is somehow unclean.  What's the deal
> here?  Why can't we be both literate and skilled?  

I don't believe that anyone advocates "literacy" or "skill" (read "well-rounded
background" and "good programming skills" (?)) in absence of the other.  Michel
and I differ on which should be emphasized.  I am (of course) influenced by my
liberal arts undergraudate degree, but my experience at Purdue has not changed
my opinion.  Good programmers are problem solvers who can encode instructions.
[not the other way around - to me]


> I don't believe that
> our society can afford too many "armchair computer scientists".   

What do you mean by "armchair computer scientists".     

> From my experience with
> wide-eyed CS grads who were incapable of dealing with real world problems,

By this, I take it to mean that you found CS grads who were not fast programmers.
Or, CS grads who had difficulties applying their knowledge.

> I suggest that CS could stand a dose of reality.

Every discipline may be plaugued by graduates who have difficulties making the
connection between theory and practice.   Not to sound trite but is this what you 
mean by "reality".

> George Seibel
> Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
> UC San Francisco

-Tom


      .^.^.        Tom Hausmann 
     . O O .       tlh@mordred.cs.purdue.edu    ( ARPA )
      . v .        ...!purdue!tlh   ( UUCP  )
     / | | \
     ./   \.       "Whooo do ya think you're foolin' "
______mm.mm_____
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