The Death Of CS In Education? 521
JohnnyKimble writes "A provocatively titled article recently appeared in the 'Future of Computing' section of the British Computer Society website. 'The Death Of Computing' was written by a lecturer at De Montfort University in the UK, and considers the problem of falling interest in computer science courses in the UK and what needs to be done to encourage more students to take the courses." This ties in well with our discussion last night about Why Software is Hard.
good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good (Score:5, Interesting)
If the people who want to do software developement had more options in college, and could go in that direction, there would actualy be some room left for CS...
re:good (Score:2)
Don't worry about it (Score:5, Funny)
More job security for those of us already in CS.
Oh, that's easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember you guys.. (Score:2, Flamebait)
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The foreigners thing might change. I know companies where I am are looking all over. But part of the reason for that is that there are TONS of people in the local market, and many of them are idiots. They are the people who rushed into the field when it was supposed to make you rich. They may have made it through school, but they are just not good at it. So you have to weed all of them out, and then you're left with the usual bell curve of people. It makes finding people very tough.
But if you can pay less
Market forces (Score:3, Interesting)
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Let the free market handle this.
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CS-Current Stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
Want to save CS? Put "Computer Science" back into it.
LK
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So if anything, we should welcome the fact that fewer MBA types are drawn to CS.
And after awhile, the worker shortage will result in higher wages and we'll get more kiddies back.
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I myself (at 17) am currently doing computing AS, and we *are* learning about arrays, stacks, queues, vectors and binary trees. Most people are doing maths AS, but not further maths (modules like decision really help with computing concepts). I doubt most of the class will even remember any of this in 2-3 years time. In the class of
What is CS Anyway? (Score:2, Informative)
so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Science is hard and not sexy. There are also too few electrical engineers (not VHDL programmers), semiconductor scientists, material scientists, physicists and what not is needed to feed the entire information technology chain.
On the other hand - the other posts are probably right about the common misconception of computer science and programming.
Grand theft auto vs. circles (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried to get my son interested in programming by showing him how to write som simple software that could draw stuff.
His response was basically: "Why cant we make something like 'Grand theft auto'; This is boring"
Re:Grand theft auto vs. circles (Score:5, Interesting)
This is how it was, and how it is. In the middle, there was a spike of people looking at lists of well-paid jobs and industry articles complaining about a shortage of people with the skills to fill them, and seeing those three-stage plans without the missing step. Most of those are gone, now. We're back to just the enthusiasts.
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This reflects my experience. I enjoy programming and time flies by when I'm doing interesting work. I've tried to share the enthusiam for programming with my two kids, with little success. Most people just aren't in to it, and that's fine.
Sometimes I wonder how many people get a similar kick out of their profession. Do lawyers thrill with the application of law the same way I love getting threads to cooperate to solve a problem? Or override equals so that a set works as specified?
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2 things:
British Computer Society is a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
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If only that were true.
And no, that isn't bitterness. I was pretty high up in the year group in my CS studies. But a few years later, I also now mentor new starters at work, and there are plenty of guys out there who got great qualifications but still don't get it.
CS is dying because... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the Jobs stupid... (Score:2)
The Classics (Score:5, Insightful)
We've talked about this on /. before. Many of the things I'm about to say will probably be in other comments, or you've seen in the past. I'll try to give a whole picture though. I should also mention where I'm coming from. The article is from the UK, but I'm in the US (almost dead center). I graduated with a degree in CIS (Computer Information Services) around June, and I've had a job as a software engineer for about 6 months now with a great little company.
Now I'm the kind of person who has always been interested in computers. Like many /.ers, I would probably have pursued this field if it paid next to nothing. While my salary is nothing to sneeze at, it's nothing compared to the 60-70k number people seemed to like to throw around during the bubble.
When I entered college in 2001, there were TONS of people who were in it for the money. That was clear by what they knew, how hard they tried, etc. There were more who seemed to think it would be interesting but weren't sure they wanted to do computers. There were others like me who breezed through the early programming courses because we were self-taught already in such simple things (basic loops, etc).
As I went through school, the bubble burst and the idea of instant riches from computers disappeared. Biomed seems to be the new instant riches career.
The biggest attraction to the field I see now for the average person is games. Everyone wants to make games. You like video games? Why not make them! You can get a CS degree or go to one of the many colleges offering game focused degrees (both accredited and fly-by-night). If you're on Windows, you have no chance at being exposed to programming. When I was younger we had HyperCard on the Mac (fantastic), BASIC on DOS/Windows, and you could learn. Today, Windows doesn't come with anything to learn programming. There is free stuff out there, but it doesn't come on the computer. Combine this with the fact that in the DOS days you could make something decent looking with BASIC or Hypercard that looked somewhat comparable with "real" software. Try that with today with anything. GUIs aren't easy. Even VB requires some rather abstract concepts (like events).
Some schools are not much better. The school I attended (DeVry) has scraped their computer program (which wasn't bad) and has replaced it with the "tracks" system. Now you don't get a CS degree, you can get a degree that focuses on database programming, or computer forensics ("It's computers, combined with CSI! Fight crime!"), or something else. It is nowhere near as general and well rounded as it was.
CS degrees seem to be being dumbed down (which seems at least due to trying to attract more people during the bubble). My local state school (which I attended for a while) had a pretty good CS program, but they've were dumbing it down as I left (putting off harder classes, using "easier"/trendier languages, etc.)
But like the article said. Computers aren't magic boxes any more. They are a normal part of life. They are like cars. Most people don't care how to make a car, only some people will try to do that for a living. We may be near that point with computers. Most of the children I've met in the last few years may use computers a ton, but don't care much about learning how to make stuff for them. They don't even have a passing interest in trying to find out the beginning. I may not know enough to make a car (far from it), but I understand some of the principles behind it. I know about the internal combustion engine.
I don't expect them to want to know about RCU, radix-trees, elevator schedulers, memory mapping, and other relatively esoteric things. But many don't even know about programs/operating systems/processes, or even really understand the filesystem hierarchy. They can get around quite well, and they've been trained in how to make flashy Powerpoint presentations about pointless things (I can't tell you how great a skill I think that is that the public school taught my 13 year
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They might be in that group. They may be someone like me who likes to mess with computers but decided to go with something that interests them more (knowing myself now, I would have loved a degree in psychology or to have studied photography). But that wouldn't have taken away what I learned myself about programming. Many people get degrees in one thing before finding they are very good at something else. The kind of people you are talking about are in that group. And that group can often provide an interes
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That's true. I can see why they think like that. They is a ton more information available today online about programming than just a few years ago. I mostly went to school so I could get my programming skills rubber stamped so I could get a job instead of trying to prove my worth on my own. The benefit to it was not only that I have that proof, but that I learned a ton more and got humbled about how good of a programmer I was and how much I knew/didn't know.
They may think like that (which may actually be q
Is a CS course the best thing, anyhow? (Score:2, Interesting)
What the profession needed - and still needs - are people who can communicate effectively. The subjects that are taught in a CS cours
Busy Market? (Score:2)
Of course, with tuition fees introduced in British universities there's been a fairly large decrease in students applying this year as compared to previous years. It could j
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politics; pipeline; Mom and Dad (Score:5, Insightful)
Public breast-beatings like these are generally political maneuvers by people in the field, who want more power and funding. I'm a physicist, and in my field you hear the same kind of thing: boo hoo, the number of students majoring in physics is dropping, it's a national crisis, please throw money at us to cure the problem. Usually the people complaining are faculty who produce 20 grad students over the course of their careers, and tell all 20 of them that they're failures if they can't make their way into careers exactly like their adviser's: teaching and doing research at a school that has a high-powered graduate program. There's always the nationalism, too: watch out, because the Russians (or Chinese, or Indians, or, ...) will beat us. They always leave out some of the relevant facts: that the U.S.'s graduate-level educational system is the envy of the rest of the world; that the number of people the U.S. is trying to educate at high levels is higher than anything that's ever been attempted before in all of history. People misuse statistics like crazy, too. For instance, they compare the number of students graduating in India with the number graduating in the U.S., but the degree programs in India they're including are basically like AA degrees, not programs that are comparable to a U.S. bachelor's degree.
Another issue that people tend to sweep under the rug is that there is a pipeline at work, and the reason people drop out of the pipeline is usually a good one. At every step along the way, some people are dropping out of the pipeline simply because their genes don't make them good at the field. Others are dropping out because they're low on motivation. Others are dropping out because they don't enjoy it, and can tell that they're not going to enjoy it once they're out of school and in a job. Still others are dropping out because they see the field as being incompatible with the family lifestyle they want.
And finally, these fluctuations in enrollment are usually driven by Mom and Dad. There is always a small core of people who were born to do a certain thing, whether it's music or plumbing or CS or physics research; they're in the field because they love it, and they love it because it's what they're naturally suited for. Layered on top of that core is always a much bigger number of people who majored in something because Mom and Dad told them they could make a lot of money at it. When times are good, the core still does well, but the wannabes bail out, because it's not turning out to be a good way to earn big bucks doing something that they're marginally talented at.
Easy (Score:2)
Back at my high school we had a bunch of 20 MHz Macs, later replaced with Windows 2000 systems. The rules were: don't touch anything you dno't know, don't access at all outside class, don't do anything that could possibly ever be dangerous, don't tinker so that you don't break it, and no, you can't change your screen
I RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is a much deeper-lying one. Universities are selling themselves as steps towards getting jobs. With very rare exceptions (divinity, for instance) this was never the case, nor was it intended to be. They are not vocational institutions, nor are they designed as such.
I have seen, and been in, vocational institutions. They are very fine places (called vocational schools, technical colleges, technikons or what have you) where pupils are drilled in particular modes of work to accomplish given tasks. They are very good at what they do, and they often work alongside other teaching systems such as apprenticeship schemes. They are not interested, institutionally speaking, in research, nor in high-flown theory. They are there to tell little Johnny that if he pulls the lever on the drill-press smoothly and evenly, it will produce an accurate, regular hole with little risk of breaking the bit. People who want to learn to be Java programmers would be well served by attending such courses. They will learn to crank out Java well, repeatably, and quickly. They won't learn in-depth knowledge about garbage collection strategies; that isn't why they are there.
Universities are not about drilling students. They are set up to expand minds. In principle a university could be a few comfortable seating areas around a vast library, with students exploring under the guidance of other people interested in expanding human knowledge. Add a few laboratories, maybe a few lecture halls for guest presentations, and you're there. In the computer science world, where the point is to have students truly understand on a deep level what is going on inside the computer, and even inside computers which only have theoretical expression, drilling them in Java would be a total waste of time.
The writer of the article wants student numbers up, and shows little or no interest in the raison d'etre of the courses and departments in the first place. His agenda, as revealed by the article, is for universities to be, or to become, vocational institutions. This is in line with the existing trend for universities to beg for students, tempting them with airy promises of gainful employment. The problem can be phrased as a question: where will those who wish for the services of universities, rather than vocational institutions, go?
Right now, the best bet would appear to be a library, or perhaps the web, because only there is pertinent information available with a minimum of time-wasting distractions. At this rate we bid fair, at least in computer science, to leave behind the benefits of university courses and return to a pre-academic level of support for research. I won't go so far as to say definitely that this is a bad thing, but I do think that to present what the author is suggesting as a university course is bordering on the fraudulent.
It isn't just the UK (Score:2)
Ignore the Bombast, Software is Forever (Score:3, Insightful)
From Computer Science to Abstraction Physics (Score:3, Informative)
Lets try try this other perspective!
A course in: Abstraction physics
Introduction:
The physics of abstraction (abstraction physics)is of an outside looking in perspective, where rather than creating another abstract language (inside), instead sees the underlying action machinery enabling the ability to create languages (outside looking in). Since Abstraction is a human mental characteristic, there is an inherent subjectivity to the topic. However, through the use of computers we can be more objective about abstraction physics. See: Abstraction (computer science) [wikipedia.org]
Abstraction enters the picture of computing with the representation of physical transistor switch positions of ON '1' and OFF '0' or what we call "Binary notation". However, computers have far more transistor switches in them than we can keep up with in such a low level or first order abstract manner, so we create higher level abstractions in order to increase our productivity in programming computers. From Machine language to application interfaces that allow users to define some sequence of action into a word or button press (ie. record and playback macro) so to automate a task, we are working with abstractions that will ultimately access the hardware transistor switches which in turn output to, or control some physical world hardware.
Programming is the act of automating some level of complexity, usually made up of simpler complexities, but done so in order to allow the user to use and reuse the complexity through a simplified interface. And this is a recursive act, building upon abstractions others have created that even our own created abstractions/automations might be used by another to further create more complex automations. In general, if we didn't build upon what those before us have done, we then would not advance at all, but rather be like any other mammal incapable of anything more than, at best, first level abstraction. But we are more, and as such have the natural human right and duty to advance in such a manner.
Abstraction action constants:
There is an identifiable and definable "physics of abstraction" (abstraction physics), an identification of what actions are required and unavoidable, in order to make and use abstractions. Abstraction Physics is not exclusive to computing but constantly in use by
0) Defining a word to mean a more complex definition (word = definition, function-name = actions to take, etc.)
1) Starting and Stopping (interfacing with) of an abstraction definition sequence.
2) Keeping track of where you are in the progress of abstraction sequence usage (moving from one abstraction to another).
3) Defining and changing "input from" direction.
4) Defining and changing "output to" direction.
5) Getting input to process (using variables or place holders to carry values).
6) Sequencially stepping thru abstraction/automation details (inherently includes optionally sending output).
7) looking up the meaning of a word or symbol (abstraction) so to act upon or with it.
8) Identifing an abstraction or real item value so to act upon it.
9) Putting constraints upon your abstraction lookups and identifications -When you look up a word in a dictionary you don't start at the beginning of the dictionary, but begin with the section that starts with the first letter then followed by the second, etc., and when
Blame employers (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, the fact that I'll have a related degree in the field won't matter to a lot of HR drones. They care more about MSCE and CCNP certifications than they do a Bachelor's degree. I know the underlying concepts of networking, routing, etc., but since I haven't worked directly with Cisco routers, I'm apparently useless to them. Who cares that I can learn whatever software package they're using in a week or so?
No wonder no one wants a degree in "CS". They just want a job in the field, and there are easier ways to get there than a 4-year degree.
Re:Blame employers (Score:4, Informative)
You couldn't be more on target if you shot it with a
I'm not down on education or earning advanced degrees, but several years ago, I remember reading about the explosion of MBAs. In the article, the author pointed out that less than 15% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies had advanced degrees. I don't know if that still holds true today, but it proved to me that real world knowledge was far more important than a degree in a frame.
Software isn't hard (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing needs to be done. (Score:3, Insightful)
A few thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
2) He speaks of CS, but muddles in things I would refer to as software engineering, computer infomation systems or managment information systems. CS should be research based while SE, CIS and MIS should be more vocational.
3) There a sort of 'what are we going to do if they slash the department' aspect to the article. My answer, find another job, just like the rest of us who have been laid off. No sympathy here.
4) He cites 100K IT graduates a year ready to do offshore support work but fails to mention that Indian companies are looking outside of India for labor. There just isn't enough labor out there to keep up with the crappy software. Hint: maybe CS departments should focus research and training on software quality. As a foot note, I wish I had the numbers or an economist would do a study, but in my gut I feel that demand for skilled IT labor is vastly outstripping supply. The US, Western Europe and India are all being depleted, or have been depleted, of skilled IT labor forcing them to look toward Vietnam, Indonesia and West Africa. And that is a huge chunk of the global population.
5) Another research hint, most software I have seen has been brittle and required much programmer attention as business rules changed. How about focusing on making software soft and flexible? This is very much where AI techniques might be used.
6) I agree that the best thing to do is to be cross disciplinary. That is where the most dynamic, chaotic wild and wooly problems live. The ones really fun to wrangle.
Training instead of education (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/aboutdmu/history/index.jsp [dmu.ac.uk]
The article a large element of "look at all the useful stuff we do here, not like the useless theory they do at places like Cambridge".
Sadly, both government and students (not just in the UK) increasingly want two things:
There is nothing new about this. There are proportionately for more students far more money going into easy and "useful" subjects like media studies. De Montfort University offers a degree in lingerie design [dmu.ac.uk] as well as "humanities" degress in dance, journalism and arts management [dmu.ac.uk].
There is less and less interest in hard and non-vocational subjects like maths, English, physics, classics, etc.
The Meaning of a "CS" needs to be re-thought (Score:5, Informative)
When i was in HS ( '73 - '77 ) being a Computer Scientest was meaningfull because they were the guys creating what today we call a "computer" along side guys with "EE" degrees. The EE guys built logic circuits that the CS guys wrote, by todays standards, primitive code that made them work. Compliers were extremely rare and we barely had "high" or "mid" level languages. Most stuff was writtin in machine code.
Now contrast that with today. Compilers, good ones even, are really a dime a dozen. Linkers and assembler are the same. The very talented have created languages, structures and frameworks that take most of the "programming" out of what people do today. Look at Java, Delphi, C#, C++, Ruby, Python, Perl, C, VB, all of them. How much really guts low level programming to the vast majority of programmers really do?
There are libraries and frameworks for practicaly everything. You need a database? Go download MySQL, Firebird, Oracle, DB2, Interbase etc. You want to build a UI? There is the entire MS-Windows API, Gnome, Aqua, KDE and numerous others. Need to talk TCP/IP, there are libraries for that on every platform, with simple invocations for just about every language. Almost everything low level these days has had a wrapper for your favorite dialect put around it.
The vast majority of programmers these days are more or less scripters. Yes you use the vocabulary of your favorite language, but lets be real here for a moment. Lets say you want to represent a list of files to a user via some UI. Are you going to go out and write the very low level code that will determine, with a mathematical proof, that you are reading the file entires on the disk drive to make sure you are doing it as fast as possble? Nope. In windows you are going to use the FindFirst / FindNext API. In *nix you might just spawn off a find thread and get its results back through STDIO. Thats not what a lot of people would say is programming in its classicle sense of the word.
A lot of the first programs i wrote that had a user interface sent me into long nights of just handeling field input, because at that time I was programming in Turbo Pascal 3.x and there were no librairies or API's that did that for you. So I was writing loops, capturing keyboard input, checking to see if was a function key that was pressed and if not then, well most of you know the drill. I had to build it all myself. But the best thing about that was that I had total control of the user expirience and I had total control of the way the software worked. There was very little in between me and the hardware.
These days its hard to even find the hardware, much less interact with it. Everything is burried under virtual methods or its being controlled by the underlaying OS which cannot give you direct control over it, because 8 other programs are all trying to use the same bit of hardware. I used to be able to stuff the keyboard buffer, now I stuff the message queue and its harder to deal with then the keyboard buffer.
The market forces really have not changed, as others have asserted, the nature of the beast has changed. I am 48 years old and 25 years ago there was barely a thing called a network, these days its ubiquitous. 25 years ago you had to either be one very smart mofo or you had to have a degree in Computer Science to be able to do anything other then what you got on a floppy. I was not one of the latter, and I worked HARD to understand what was happening inside tht box. I spent many many nights laerning about interrupt controllers, about drive controllers ( MFM anyone? ) about starting drive diagnostics with debug and understanding what the hell I was doing. I cursed IBM daily for dropping all the memory mapped hardware into the TOP of the address space instead of the bottom, OHHHH how I cursed them. I learned the LIM spec and how to shuffle chucks of memory around. but I digress...
Business embraced the beast and the beast grew and matured. Todays business does not need a person with a CS d
Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I don't even have a degree or certification but I do have 10 years professional experience and I very much am familiar with algorithms and data structures and can even conjure up mathematical proofs of some of them (with complete understanding). I'm just a self-study, is all. I started to get a degree in comp. sci. since I was practicing it for many years but got sick of earning crappy crades because I didn't follow things step-by-step as per the textbook but actually optimized or found more efficient ways of achieving the same -- getting ahead of the class mostly. I'm not really cut out to be a robot.
These days I do a lot of research in things like autonomic computing (self-healing software) and nueral networks and genetic algorithms (which really are just another type of algorithm and data structure in my opinion, nothing magical). Trying to get learning into my business services and elements of healing and user-usage pattern recognition. In the self-healing and learning erea, I mostly have to decipher various doctoral theses and other scholastic publications to get any useful information; not an easy task for someone who at most has about 2 semesters of college edumacation and no industry certs (but well over 800 software programming & related book on my shelf that each have been read cover to cover mostly).
Computer Science is often misunderstood, too, by everyone in the employment chain. Computer Science is more about research and in a sense, pioneering, and coming up with better ways to solve problems or even identifying new problems to solve at a fundamental level. Comp. Scientists will even offer "proofs" of various solutions and so on and present initial implementations.
I view Software Engineering more as "vocational". Not necessarily research and acedemics, but more or less puting well-known practice and knowledge into implementation; designing architectures and frameworks and such. I'm not sure where the overlap is, if any. I don't picture computer scientists really creating business applications and data entry programs but I do view them creating something like photoshop and flash and operatins systems, for example. There's much research and fundatmentals in those things. I don't view software engineers proper as doing fundamental research but I woudln't rule out them doing research and coming up with creative ways to solve problems that might interfere with the duties of a scientist if requirements dictate.
My point in all this is that most employers want programmers, coders, or developers (whatever you want to call it) but actually try to hire scientists when comp. sci. isn't about programming as much as it is about research. Most companies don't want researchers, they want people that can take known research and knowledge and put it into practice for the company.
Most people that want to be software developers don't necessarily want to be scientists; computer science is the wrong field of study for them. MIS or Soft. Eng. is better for them. Though I agree that all programmer types should be familiar with the basics, there's a difference with being
Allow the Market to Work (Score:3)
Thoughts from an ex-pro programmer (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Calculus. Not designed for easy understanding, and arguably not necessary for CS. It may be part of programming, but is that because it is necessary, or because CS people know calculus and want to do something with all that painfully acquired knowledge? It's also a barrier that keeps out extremely intelligent people who could do great in CS, but didn't go down that particular mathematical road. Not knowing calc, I am not qualified to say whether or not it is indespensible, but it IS possible to live without it. I guess it is the old CS/CIS divide. Left and right brain, all that.
2. CS people are perceived as supercilious, arrogant, dissmissive, know-it-all antisocial males. This is a cliche, which is synonym for "obvious truth". Not many want to hang around such a social group. They also run heavily to objectivism, which makes for strained relationships with anyone to the left of Robert Heinlein.
3. No women. See above #2 for why.
4. Ageism. It is obvious that anyone over the age of 35 is not really welcome at the table. Unless you are in management, teaching, or are just the very best, you are not at the front of the line when you are applying for work at CoolTech. There are exceptions, and they are growing in number, because of the sheer pressure of so many aging tech people. But the perception, based on reality, is that you have a 15 year career and then you are not welcome at the D&D table at lunchtime.
5. The profession has been... no word for it, so let's call it "corporatized"? "Downprestiged"? "Bluecollared"? In the early 2000's, a little H1B magic and outsourcing work to cheaper countries gave employers the ability treat their formerly royal employees like janitorial temps. Wages plummetted, management grew rich, resumes were used as kindling for the boss's fireplace. People who spent a decade or more working long days found out that they were as disposable as a Bic lighter in the management's view. Wrong of course, but perception is key and they weren't about to admit they were wrong, so the bitchslapping continues. The bosses *hate* the CS people for having the upper hand for over ten years, and the payback is not going to stop.
6. Not everyone wants to leap around the country year after year following contract jobs. Can't raise a family or grow equity in real estate that way, and it is a pain in the ass besides.
7. No unions allowed. Rightist attitudes amongst CS people themselves and a host of labor laws gone unenforced for over 25 years have seen to it that no collective bargaining can be performed, or even be legal. A bit of elitism ("we aren't blue collar lazy union asses!") doesn't help.
8. What the HELL kind of mess has programming become? Where do you even start anymore? It's in every direction at once.
9. When exactly did programming become so "businesslike" we have to dress like bankers? Not everyone wants to be a suit. Especially when it's not necessary.
10. Wages down. Manipulated to stay that way.
11. It's a lonely profession, and if you are gregarious, the silence and enforced isolation (even if its in your own head) is wearing. Not everyone wants to be a mathematically inclined loner.
12. No women, not many anyway. Worth repeating.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd also like to hear what kind of work you're doing that business majors would grasp it easier than CS majors.
Thanks but no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it helps to find an employer who can recognize this and is willing to invest in you. Rather than, say, one who might be trying to pay bottom dollar for recent grads while simultaneously expecting them to already know everything about programming in a business environment?
(just my $.02)
Re:Thanks but no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. I am astonished by the general public which advocates liberal arts education for general self-betterment, while condoning learning in computer science only if it "gets you a job." I learn CS theory and practice software development because I love it. The side-effect that it keeps me employed is an added bonus. I am not earning my degree as a permit to enter the workforce. I study computer science because I want to.
This is why I find these Slashdot discussions on education amusing; so many commenters try to make statements as to "what universities should teach." A university is a seller which should pander only to its clients - the students attending it. As such, the only thing that should be taught is what the students want to learn.
That's quite a rant.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is the sales and marketing drones who nobody cares about - but they do make out like bandits anyway, so nobody should care about them anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I only occasionally use computers when working, most of my time is spent on a whiteboard or walking, figuring algorithms out. Usually by the time I hit the computer, its just to instantiate an algorithm.
I've been doing this for many years, and I wouldn't have
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can impart the fundamentals, which is what a degree in computer science is supposed to be about. It is proof that you have an understanding of the basics and can apply them. I think the reason you are getting crap programmers out of coll
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
For Americans, and other aliens, I will now divert into some history. In the UK, we used to have two kinds of higher education establishments; Universities and polytechnics. Universities concentrated on academic courses, while polytechnics taught vocational courses. Then the Conservative government decided that it was discriminatory that not everyone got a 'university degree,' and so turned all of the polytechnics into universities. Now, instead of teaching good vocational courses, they teach bad academic ones. Worse, as appears to be the case with this guy, teach their old vocational course with an academic-sounding name. It sounds like he was teaching an IT course back in the polytechnic days and is now teaching the same course but calling it computer science.
My course had about a 30-50% attrition rate[1], although most of those who dropped out did so very early on in the first year, once they had realised that they didn't want to be doing Computer Science at all; they wanted to be doing IT, or possibly Software Engineering.
[1] Note: unlike the American system, students in UK universities are enrolled on a particular degree scheme for 3-4 years. If they drop out, then they can not simply change their modules and get a different degree, they have to re-apply the next year to a different department.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Insightful)
True, in my school the courses the languages that we wrote in *were* incidental. Above the 200 level there were no "X Language" course. I used to say that the profs announced that "you'll be writing your next assignment in [.. roll the dice..] Java." But most languages are similar and fall into families. Scheme is like Lisp. Assembly is like C. Java is like C# or C++.
I've had input in hiring people. Personally, I'm not so concerned that someone has the stellar skills in the language of the day. Ability in C language impresses me. Clean code impresses me. Even for web stuff. Most programmers can hack things together on the fly and that impresses the brass; they don't see that this job is also a profession. The world doesn't need more hackers (classical sense of the word) because it causes never ending debugging and refactoring sessions. Nobody wants to spend their career fixing someone's crap. And the explanation that a product that they wanted was so rushed into place that it cannot become something slightly different without major work is painful for everyone. I know. So calculate your ROI over two or three years not just one.
Not saying that someone w/o a CS degree cannot code well. I'm saying that it is more likely that someone with a CS degree will want to. Unless they're bored out of their skull and then they need to be assigned some other project/language/platform or design work for a challenge.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in college I often lamented the lack of practical experience I was getting. Today I'm glad that I got a solid grounding in the theory of CS rather than a lot of classes about how best to optimize PDP-11 assembly code. Technology and training goes obsolete. A solid theoretical base lets you keep up with the constant change in the computer industry and keep your knowledge of the technology current.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Insightful)
Brett
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Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Insightful)
CG at Pixar, Disney, nVidia and ATI. (I'm not sure how much software-based work there is at the last two, though...)
Plus all the technologies I mentioned are simultaneously being developed by many other companies!
Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what sort of university offers "Web development" as a major? Web development is the sort of thing you learn at a community college, or on your own time with the help of several books. You don't take three or four years at a university to learn web development.
Re:Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Computer science is a branch of mathematics. (Score:5, Interesting)
My observations are completely opposite. CS courses are getting more applied, not less.
As far as the decline in CS it is due to other reasons. It is a logical combination of the steady decline of math in schools in Western Europe (and especially English speaking) combined with systematic stampout of the freedom to tinker. It is the same in CS, physics and chemistry.
As a result the kids that come out of the UK and US educational system are damaged beyond repair. The few that have not lost their interest cannot compete versus kids from the mainland Europe, Eastern Europe, Far East or even India. I am not surprised that they chose not to enter CS, physics or chemistry degrees. With the average education level provided by British and US schools facing a class (or even worse competition for jobs) versus what is produced by education systems elsewhere is a very dawnting perspective.
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KFG
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Computer science does have a lot to do with math but is it reasonable to expect 24 hours of math when 36 hours gets you a degree in math? That is exactly what my CS program required. Most (if not all) CS majors here were dual majors because of this.
It got so bad that my college has since dropped the entire program because of the high drop rate. To put it bluntly, they were taking in 30-40 students a semester and graduating 5-7!
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Put it this way: why are you in college? Are you there to learn how to make web pages, apps, or video games? You may be wasting your time. Actually, let me put it another way: if you aren't in a CS program because you like learning about computers for the sake of learning about computers, you're in the wrong place. Get out of that degree and apply yourself.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's see, "science" in this context is basically the process of using math to model physical phenomenon and "computing" is using physical phenomena to model math.
So that would be a "Yes."
Which also leaves me to wonder which part you didn't understand, the "computer" or the "science"? I'm dead serious.
Oh, I don't blame you entirely, although one might think you had looked into a field and just what it entailed before signing up for it as a major, but the really troubling part is that you had prior education and career counseling. It was not done with any apparent degree of competence.
The really, really troubling part is that I would be more surprised if it had been. Such is the state of things today.
So, don't think I'm really picking on you or anything, I'm just having a bit of a sad giggle to myself in public while banging my head against the wall.
So yes, math is a big part of CS but there has got to be better ways to handle it.
No, there do not. Computer science is about math. Because that's what it is about. If you want to be a programmer or a web designer, study those. You seem to have finally found your path. It's merely a shame there was noone about competent enough to steer you toward it in the first place.
And that's not your fault.
KFG
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer Science is roughly, the study of what sorts of problems you can solve with a computer, and how to make them do so.
Just like Mathematics is the study of what sorts of problems you can solve with Mathematics, and how to solve them
The applied mathematics legacy of computer science is thankfully wearing off more and more - we're now thinking about algorithms from a discrete, slow-convergent, approximative perspective -- thing's you'd never do if you started on paper or if computation time were prohibative (i.e. limited by human protein instead of teraflops silicon).
Web development is no more a computer science degree than sabarnes oxley compliance is economics or accounting. The former is the specialization of a topic made relevant by the latter, a specialization that will be gone in a few short years. Just last week we had the article about the "death of the webmaster". I eaglerly await the "death of the web developer". We will either transcend the web, or publishing content to the web will become so commonplace and pervasive that it hardly seems worth calling a specialty.
No offense to your or your career choice intended, but hopefully the work you do today sets the stage for tomorrow. You and the world will move on to better things.
One thing will be invariant, through all of this, however. There will be problems to solve, and people will want to know if computers can solve them effectively. That is what computer science is and should remain. New problems will arise, and new general solutions will emerge, each becoming an area of further research or career specialization.
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In my humble opinion, more and more problems in IT today are words problems rather than number problems. Programming is more like writing natural language, not like performing calculus.
The biggest area for advances in computing is the man-machine interface. Which boils down to language in the end.
Still, t
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Insightful)
At its basis, computer science is nothing more than discrete algerbra and graphy theory. It is applied mathemtics, pure and simple. For what you want to do, you're right. You'd better off getting an art degree and picking up a few programming course on the side.
Actually, I would say that CS programmes need MORE math and theory classes. Sorry, but too many IT people are walking around with little to no understanding of fundamental data structures, calculus or logic. People think that I'm talking in circles at work, and its mainly b/c I have a physics background -- we solve problems with graphs, formulas and rigors that many IT "professionals" fail to grasp. If anything, I'm pursuing a CS masters so I can grasp even more of the high level basis of modern information technology. Its only in seeing the full theorem can you understand how it all fits.
And in what universe does a CS undergrad not learn how to program? That was a pre-req for majoring in the subject when I was in college -- and I graduate in 2000!! Must be older than I thought.
Look, you can teach most people how to hack code, troubleshoot a switch, or run a tech support call. But the underlying theorems that glue all of IT together you can only get from a classical Computer Science or engineering education. Its alot easier for a CS, Physics or Math major to switch between a networking job and a programming job, b/c he knows all of the background stuff that makes it all work. An IT-certified pro may struggle a bit, only b/c he's not going to know the basics.
My big complaint about CS majors is that most HS in the states don't prepare young people for the kind of head-scratching work that the major requires.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:5, Informative)
If you wanted to do "web development" (heh) you are in the wrong area. Other than parts of systems programming (and even there, paging algorithmsm memory management etc. are mathematical), Computer "Science" is, well, math oriented.
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Just a note: There are tons of jobs right now for people who can do machine learning or statistics on very large datasets (ie: the type which you can't load into memory at once and sometimes which are continually being lengthened).
CS != ECE (Score:5, Insightful)
I normally see just much of what the parent has listed as being part of an Electrical Engineering disciple. In my experience, Computer Science just does not take on these areas... (CS people studying information theory *today*, HA that's a good one!)
Isn't work in multimedia codecs typically done by Electrical Engineers (signal processing, embedded systems)? The design/implementation of MPEG video codecs requires background in signal processing, VLSI techniques, etc....
My somewhat biased view is this: if it involves calculus, (mathematical) optimization, advanced probability, adaptive algorithms, etc, it is usually part of electrical engineering. On the other hand, if it involves abstract algebra, applied linear algebra, heuristic algorithms (i.e. those not based upon mathematical optimization), discrete math, compiler design, it often falls under computer science.
I've taken a sizable number of CS classes. Case in point: the Fourier Transform is apparently a new concept to CS Graduate students in a highly ranked ("Top 20") US University. Even more disturbing: deriving the DFT of a simple sine-wave was considered overly difficult! Yes, I realize most CS majors don't do this every day... Then again, its only simple calculus, and is taught to EE sophomores/juniors! This is not the only example and I could go on and on....
I'm not trying to start a flame-war, I just don't see CS as being "math-based" compared to other fields. For me, CS is somewhere between Information Technology and Engineering in terms of math.
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Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) The formal methods that study the mathematics of computability and computation.
2) The study of how computers themselves actually work -- the CPU, the OS, compilers, etc.
3) An engineering discipline -- software engineering, computer (hardware) engineering, etc. For instance, in the case of software, we're talking the analysis, design, and implementation.
4) A foundation upon which to study specific subfields, like AI or robotics, or data visualization, 3D graphics, etc.
Obviously there are common skills shared between all four. For instance, programming is a tool used for empirical verification of results in #1, it's the product of the work done in #2, it's an entry-level skill upon which much of #3 is based, and it's necessary for experimentation with #4. The problem, as I see it, is that too may schools focus too much on #1. I do think there is value in understanding complexity theory and things like that, but the reality is that for 90% of the jobs out there, those sorts of skills are of secondary importance to #3, and to soft skills like verbal/written communication, project management, etc. If you look at all the lists of the top growing jobs, software engineering is always near the top of the list. There is a need for computer scientists, particularly those focused on software engineering.
My school focused on #3 -- software engineering in particular. We had the algorithms, data structures, discrete structures, CPU organization, OS, etc. All the basics. But for the upper level classes, instead of making us take a year of complexity theory or something like that, we studied data modeling, object-oriented design patterns, technical communication, software development methodologies, etc. Sure, you could take your theory of computation or #4 topics as electives if you wanted, but it wasn't the core focus. And with a background like that, there were far more job offers out there than graduates. And when you started, you started way above the entry-level position.
So no, computer science is not going away. It's just that the emphasis needs to shift towards a more engineering-oriented approach. We'll always still need some folks who really understand the theory, who understand the details of compilers, and the CPU designers. But the vast majority of people instead need to be effective software engineers. And educational institutions need to realize that and alter the emphasis of their curriculums to accommodate that trend. Those that don't will simply become irrelevant.
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Obviously you don't know what computer science is [wikipedia.org].
I didn't want a math degree and that is exactly what I was getting.
No. You didn't want computer science. You wanted a trade school that would teach you how to use an application.
Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:If their CS programs are like ours... (Score:4, Insightful)
Computer science (and possibly some related disciplines) are dying because there are more and more dumbed down courses which people apply for instead because they are at universities that are more accesisble. People are generally lazy - the explosion in people asking homework questions on programming forums and IRC is testament to that - and if they think they can get away without doing something, generally they will.
Hard computer science problems require lots of math, you can't escape that, whether it be graphics, artificial intelligence, classification, whatever. The more I work, the more I realise just how much math I really should know, and how little that I do. There are areas of using and designing for computers that don't require math - but these are mainly psychology related. Once you get down to what is going on under the hood, it is math.
There is a reason that major employers are picky about the grades, courses and universities that they recruit from.
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Anyway the answer isn't to dumb down CS but to create other majors or cs specialties that fill in the required role. I think my school has a few CS-related departments/programs:
-Mathematical and Computational Science if you want more mathish applications (with less theory)
-Symbolic Systems, I think its more computer-human interaction.
In addition while CS
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KFG
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Re:no subject (Score:5, Informative)
That depends. Are you talking about history, which doesn't help you with programming but makes you a more well rounded person; or are you talking about some kind of complex math which you may not see the value of but really does have a ton to do with programming?
If it's the former, I understand your grief but we all have to go though with it, and you just may discover other subjects you're interested in during the course of taking those courses.
If it's the later, maybe this isn't the field for you. Maybe you want to do something else related that doesn't require that kind of knowledge, like light system administration, computer repair, or maybe another field entirely. But even if you specialize yourself in computers (like DB training only), you will still need that stuff if you want to be really good at your job.
Computers, and especially computer science, are NOT for people who don't like Math.
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Re:It's the $$$ Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
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