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from the does-it-count-as-a-foreign-language dept.
Mark Guzdial at ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) writes:
I have three reasons for thinking that learning CS is different than learning other STEM disciplines.
- Our infrastructure for teaching CS is younger, smaller, and weaker;
- We don't realize how hard learning to program is;
- CS is so valuable that it changes the affective components of learning.
The author makes compelling arguments to support the claims, ending with:
We are increasingly finding that the emotional component of learning computing (e.g., motivation, feeling of belonging, self-efficacy) is among the most critical variables. When you put more and more students in a high-pressure, competitive setting, and some of whom feel "like" the teacher and some don't, you get emotional complexity that is unlike any other STEM discipline. Not mathematics, any of the sciences, or any of the engineering disciplines are facing growing numbers of majors and non-majors at the same time. That makes learning CS different and harder.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:46PM (20 children)
We do, we realise that when done well, programming is a creative endeavour. Without creative flair, source code is dull as dog shit.
"Muh feelz!" Perhaps students who underwent basic eduction emphasising logic and rational thought instead of "no child left behind" neo-marxist bullshit would not have such problems?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Crash on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:01PM (4 children)
The wife, to this day will still ask me opposing "OR" questions.
"Do you want to go see a movie? Or stay home tonight?"
"Yes."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:12PM (1 child)
Are you Greedy or Lazy ?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:28PM
Just async
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:31PM
I do the same exact thing to my wife LOL
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:48AM
That's why there are so few female programmers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:14PM (1 child)
The absolute state of the American proletariat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @11:06PM
That's "lumpenproletariat", you petit bourgeoisie! If only there was American education.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:40PM (2 children)
Maybe this explains how surreal trying to read "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby" was. Probably 2/3 of the book was weird regressions and offtopic philosophy, and the author sounded like he was about to burst into tears at any moment.
Not really sure programming is supposed to be *that* sort of transcendental experience. Although I sort of understand the catb "hack mode" [catb.org] thing.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:35AM (1 child)
There was an old fortune quote "deep hack mode, that place where mere mortals fear to tread".
I developed an interest in computers because I'm an introvert, rare to find an extrovert who'd enjoy locking themselves away in a dark room for a weekend to play with a new language. Is it that CS used to be a self selecting group, then people who aren't naturally drawn to the subject were drawn to the degree and careers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:44AM
The tech purge is complete and the nerds are replaced by the tech bros.
The tech bros are extroverted social climbers and they don't spend long weekends learning anything. Extroverts don't need to learn. Tech bros drop questions on stack overflow and expect to be given answers by the same unemployed introverts who they replaced because unemployable losers obviously have nothing better to do.
Introverts who are foolish enough to waste their lives getting degrees will never, ever, ever find careers in tech. They can learn whatever they want but they will never get paid. They will die lonely deaths in their isolated dark rooms.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 10 2018, @11:49PM (1 child)
That 'species' has been declared obsolete long ago. One can get only second hand specimens now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday January 11 2018, @03:43PM
I agree with the broad sentiment that thinking skills should be emphasised more, but: no, philosophy is still there to be studied.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:15AM (1 child)
But far more robust, usable, and cheaper to produce. Programming competitions are the only places where code is written for the sake of itself. Code creativity should be left out of everything else.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:01PM
The old saw that you can have an amazing rockstar programmer whose fingers produce source code of breathtaking efficiency, and yet when he leaves the company/retires/dies and nobody else can understand what he wrote it all gets thrown out or fucked up by his successors.
Better to have a team of good but not spectacular developers who get the job done and document everything with less-imaginative source code.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:01AM (2 children)
I hear that a lot, but you can substitute pretty much anything that isn't trivially automated for programming in the sentence, so I'm not sure that the observation is particularly valuable.
The big difference between computer science and physics is that no one actually expects to learn (or teach) all of physics in a single undergraduate degree. Everyone knows that physics is a huge subject and students are encouraged to specialise fairly early. The course aims to give you an overview of the whole field and then drill down a lot. Computer science courses, generally, still try to teach you all of computer science, but end up giving more detail than you need for an overview and less than you need to be an expert. There are enough things that people say 'you can't be a computer scientist if you don't properly understand X' that we leave specialisation too late.
There's a related problem that most of the world sees computer science as a degree that's closely tied to a particular career path. You don't do a physics degree expecting to be ready to work in a nuclear power plant or designing car engines without any further training, yet people expect to hire fresh computer science graduates that have detailed knowledge of things that have little relevance to an academic subject.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday January 11 2018, @03:41PM (1 child)
Disagree. I had to choose my optional modules. I chose some topics, and necessarily didn't study the others. I have a passable grasp of computer architecture and compilers, but know little about, say, real-time systems, or video processing. I don't how it could be otherwise. CS isn't a small field of study.
There is in practice relatively little difference between a computer science degree and a software engineering degree, sure.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:05PM
When did you have to choose? In the UK, most computer science degrees only have optional components in the final year. In contrast, most places don't offer general engineering degrees, they offer electrical engineering, civil engineering, and so on. Physics and mathematics are often offered as a single degree course, but you have optional components from the first year and by the second you may be doing a completely disjoint set of courses to other people taking nominally the same degree. Two people with mathematics degrees will both know algebra, but beyond that they may have taken completely different paths. Two people with computer science degrees will almost certainly have done courses in databases, object-oriented programming, functional programming, graphics, sorting and searching algorithms, and various bits of discrete maths.
There's a lot more material that is taught to every computer science student than pretty much any other STEM subject that isn't a narrow specialism.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @01:17PM
"dog shit"
Hey! don't call Java bad things.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday January 11 2018, @01:32PM (1 child)
'Dull'? This is a petri-dish example of the sort of thinking that makes other engineering fields view 'software engineering' as a bad joke.
'Engineering' isn't about making sure the engineers find their solutions to be aesthetically pleasing. It's about rigorously getting the job done. Is this news to you?
Fortunately, at least a small number of software professionals really do understand this:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:18PM
Nobody said it should be difficult to understand or undocumented. Creativity and mindfulness are part of writing clean code. [medium.com]