On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 17:09 -0500, Tom Harper wrote:
> I've seen very few university-level computer science programs that are
> effective, either for mainframes or non-mainframes.
This conversation shouldn't wander too far OT, but I've never understood
why people believe that computer science departments should teach m/f
particulars (or for that matter, MS-Windows particulars).
If "computer science" deserves the "science" part of its title, then
those departments should be teaching algorithms, graph theory, game
theory, optimization, numerical analysis, NNs, functional programming,
compiler structure, objects -- stuff like that. NOT windowing APIs, not
JCL, not Apache modules, not Visual Anything. The platform used by the
students should be treated as incidental.
I'll hire a kid with a fresh CS degree any day, whether he's got MVS
experience or not. There's some COBOL coder-beavers around here with
years of MVS behind them, but have no idea what O(n) means, and they
produce some truly wretched code.
Really, you want graduates with MVS skills? Talk to vocational schools
(or to Steve) -- THEY're in the business of teaching platforms.
Computer science departments should stick to computer science.
Here's MIT's EECS course catalog. Notice you don't see either MVS -or-
Windows mentioned in it.
http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m6a.html
--
David Andrews
A. Duda and Sons, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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