A proper appeal: computer science curricula

[banazir]

I was going to call this "An Immodest Proposal" or "A Proper Rant", but as you well know, I'm too much of a pragmatist not to get straight down to brass tacks on this subject.

I've been thinking - not just this morning, nor only this past week, but really this whole semester - about what we need to get some foundations of mathematics and

Comments

[gregbo]

"relation: asubset of the cross product of two or more sets"

Did you mean cartesian product?

As for retention of what's learned in computer science curricula, most of it won't be because it won't be used.

Use it or lose it

[banazir]

Did you mean cartesian product?
Yes, and so edited; excuse the colloquialism - I didn't mean vector product. :-) I'm used to saying "cross product" for tuples and types 'a * 'b, as in 'a * 'b -> 'c.

As for retention of what's learned in computer science curricula, most of it won't be because it won't be used.
Yes and no. I think a lot of the things listed above should be used, and where it isn't, we get shoddy (faulty or poorly-designed and hard-to-maintain, hard-to-extend) software. However, I also agree with kakarigeiko in that CSes are not software engineers any more; there is still a lot of overlap (50+% in a good program), but equating them and expecting a trained "CS/SE" (such as a professional of this description exists) to come out of a 4-year B.S. program will just lead to unilateral disappointment. Ergo, what he suggests is (IMO) really the way to go: we need Colleges of Computing with CS and SE departments. Tear that band-aid off.

--
Banazir

Re: Use it or lose it

[gregbo]

"I think a lot of the things listed above should be used, and where it isn't, we get shoddy (faulty or poorly-designed and hard-to-maintain, hard-to-extend) software."In my experience, software projects don't fall apart because of a lack of, or misapplied CS theory. Rather, it is because of poor planning and/or communication. Bad code gets written because there isn't time allocated to write good code. Inadequate testing is performed because management insists the software go out the door to satisfy bean counters. Items fall through the cracks because there isn't adequate discussion of the issues

[tmehlinger]

All right, I'll take the bait, here goes. Hopefully I don't crush too many toes.

I am woefully tired and frustrated with all the theoretical froo-froo that's been stuffed in my head over the last three years, and I dread taking courses like 570 and 575. Perhaps if I understood most of it, I wouldn't feel this way, but the fact remains that I don't understand even half of it, and anymore I'm not much interested. I had no trouble with courses like Calc I/II/III, Digital Logic, Data Structures, etc. because I felt like I was ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING. There are clear, well defined, unmistakable fundamentals in algebra/calculus--if you understand 1+1=2, you're halfway to a good understanding of calculus. If you can do binary math in your head, you've mastered most of digital logic. These are painfully, ridiculously, monumentally, stupidretardedly simple, yet POWERFUL fundamentals that any idiot can understand an build on.
The "other" fundamentals of math boggle my mind. I understand what set difference/intersection/union/etc

[tmehlinger]

Rereading this, I may have sacrificed some objectivity in the name of venting my disappointment. Regardless, I know of at least a few CS majors who feel much the same way as I do, and hopefully this will offer some insight into our view on CS. Now that I've made myself angry, I'm going to go blast my roommates to smithereens.

[mapjunkie]

The problem, to my mind, is that there aren't any good tactics given certain strategic goals. There is a group of people who will need these abstract skills, have the economic need to acquire them in the same span of time (well, actually longer), and have a label undistinguishable from the one you are seeking. At first, it seems that if there was a label for a shorter period, that lets you do what you want with no stigma attached professionally, then that would be ideal. However, that presupposes that there is no motion between these two groups, but this is not the case, as I, at least, find out about new topics that interest me, lurking on the other side of some previously irrelevant sludge, all the time.

To even find out what the opportunities are, sometimes trudging face-first into the firehose seems to be the only way...

[mapjunkie]

Also, I should say that trying to do things too soon (as you alluded to with prerequisites) can be very harmful. Even following the prerequisites, I probably took on Linear Algebra, Thermodynamics, and Theorem Proving too soon to get my head around where they might be going with these things. And yes, I have needed information from all three since then, and had to reteach myself.