[TriLUG] OT: PT One tech issue from tonight's debate

[Brandon Van Every]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 2:06 PM, P L Charles Fischer
<cfischer at modernferrotype.com> wrote:
> If the current employment
> picture needs C# programmers (god help us), schools need to be turning out
> good C# programmers and not compiler writers.

Perhaps I've been around too long, or perhaps I went to too good a
school.  I entered knowing BASIC and some Pascal.  I learned a lot
more Pascal in my first semester programming course.  The second
semester, we got handed a cheat sheet.  "You know Pascal?  Hey, boom,
now you know C."  No classwork at all, we learned it as we used it.
At that college, I think it would have been an insult to the
intelligence of the undergraduates if it had been otherwise.  We *did*
already fulfill the prereqs in *some* programming language already,
didn't we?  What's another one, with nearly identical syntax and
semantics?

So no, the statement above is no kind of answer.  Picking up the
language du jour is trivial for anyone with either experience *or*
brains.  You don't even need both.  You are describing such a low
level of basic skill, as far as what "the industry wants or needs,"
that I don't see it as worth considering.  If what the industry
*really* wants is piles and piles of kids fresh out of college who
know C# *and nothing else*, well that's another matter to discuss.  It
would either say a lot about an "iceberg" model of the computer
industry (1/10 above, 9/10 below) or else about companies wanting
blank slates that they can mold to their wills.  Which just sounds
like a bunch of NIH to me, so maybe what we *really* need, is more
business courses for programmers so they don't have to be someone's
employee on graduation.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/how-a-teenager-snubbed-college-toi-build-an-apps-empire-.html

> When I was in school there
> were two physics programs. One was the typical theoretical physics for
> students that were heading for NASA (an option at that time) or for grad
> school. The other was called engineering physics and was applied physics.
> Computer science may need to go the same way.

They already do.  One's called Computer Science and the other is
called Information Technology.  Although I prefer the third option,
Largely Self-Taught.  There are a bazillion programming resources on
the internet nowadays and 18 year olds with serious coding skills are
hardly unusual.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every