On Tue, 2010-10-05 at 13:15 +0100, Ricky Clarkson wrote: > 1. Lack of BASIC or equivalent pre-installed on PCs. Perhaps less and > less important as we're increasingly online, but I think this still > affects the current generation; you can expect most CS students to > have done no programming beforehand, whereas I don't think that was > true 12 years ago. Of course, this depends on the Uni's entry > requirements.
I don't think this is as big an issue as you might expect. The real issue is that sophisticated smartphone toys and use is connected to someone else having done some work, not the person doing it for themselves. > 2. A lot of Unis don't even teach any CS. My CS degree didn't > mention 'lambda', 'type system', etc., and a compiler was a black box > you got .class files out of, not something you wrote. Sounds like your University should not have been allowing people to graduate with CS degrees. This is afault of the degree validating process not the students. > 3. Most lecturers who teach people to program can't program. This > isn't hyperbole, but my experience, both as a student and as a > lecturer for a number of years. As a student I had some Java work > marked down because the lecturer had not realised it was valid Java to > have a try..catch within a try block. As it happened, I found two > other lecturers who backed me up and the marks were increased, but > only because I was an arrogant sod. Plenty of other people get marked > down for silly reasons like that all the time without recourse. Tell me about it. As someone who can program a bit, I am in general appalled by the complete inability of the vast majority of staff teaching on CS courses to do any quality programming themselves. Get to schools and the problem is even worse. Of course if staff were paid to teach and research instead of just research, and if they were actually paid commensurate with what they can earn elsewhere it might help. > 4. Many people are on the wrong degree course. People who find > programming to be something to avoid should not be on a CS course, > simple as that. Worse, some (non-CS) degree courses are advertised as > not containing any programming, and then actually do. Far to many people on CS courses remain failed mathematicians ;-) -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:[email protected] 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected] London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
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