Cross-posting to compsci list... On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 12:28:39AM -0800, Gino LV. Ledesma wrote: > And actually, it does sound like a good business venture: case in > point, partnerships with schools and companies like Oracle, Cisco, > Microsoft, Sun, etc.
True, but this must always be kept in perspective. No school should sacrifice its academic integrity for the sake of such grants. It is in the interests of such business ventures for them to do so, but it is not necessarily in the interests of their students. > > As much as having "real" CS be the curriculum, I think that schools > are hardpressed to deliver a purely "theoretical approach." They shouldn't do that either. A pure theoretical approach will turn them into little more than mathematicians specializing in a particular branch of discrete mathematics. There's also an engineering dimension to computer science, and this cannot be ignored. > A typical "real CS" curriculum will have Math... LOTS of it. But, > unfortunately, not a lot of students can deal with the extra Math > beyond Calculus and Discrete Mathematics. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Such students would be much happier in some other course that isn't as math-intensive. CS is at its core a branch of mathematics, if they don't like that, they should try something else. > The tendency now is to promote "the in-thing" as a promise to a secure > career and future for the student. Take a look at course offerings, > and you'll see several focused on teaching Java, .NET, C/C++, and the > like, but without focus on what's more important: problem solving, > data structures and algorithms, compiler design and implementation, > etc. These "latter subjects" are a turn off, when in fact they should > be the ones that appeal to people to take Computer Science to > understand "products" like Java and .NET. This is an incredibly short-sighted view, obviously. You may learn all you need to learn about these "in-things" but the theoretical foundations are required to use these tools effectively. > > In fairness, I don't believe that these subjects are bad or worthless. > On the contrary, ivory-tower thinking is useless without a little > hands-on application. We can debate all we want about algorithm x and > algorithm y in theoritical space, but they become pointless unless > there's practical application. So in this sense Java, .NET, Python, > Ruby, and whatnot are great in that, as tools, you get to test your > ideas and see them come alive. I believe that familiarity (if not > mastery) of the vocabulary (language/tool) helps a lot in > implementation, so these types of classes are helpful that way. > > So balance is still important. A school might opt to go the "real CS" > way, but should also have a venue for their students to channel what > they've learned. Which way is the balance tilted now? Methinks it's too far in the direction of the hands-on application and not enough theory. Worse yet, some CS curricula actually tie them to specific applications and software vendors. -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
