On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 01:56:38PM -0800, Bryan Richter wrote: > On Jan 16, 2008 1:30 PM, Dylan Beaudette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > They work exclusively with Excel. > > > > A discussion about this problem with my sig. other last night resulted in > > mutual distrust of the way most people in academics and "professional" > > circles are handling data. There really should be a 'data management' course > > which is either part of the Technical Writing courses (which are required) > > or > > taught as a single quarter class. Everyone who is not in computer science or > > mathematics should be required to either test out of the course or take it. > > > > No joke! > > A friend of mine (anonymized as 'Sue' for good measure) worked for a > project where she was the only person with any computer science > experience. She was also the least-degreed member, with a B.S. This > project was in a government lab and she was responsible for parsing > data coming back from a satellite and storing it for later retrieval. > The big cheese couldn't understand that they needed a database > application! We're talking terabytes of data over the life of the > project, and they're trying to get Sue to whip something together all > by herself because of their complete unfamiliarity with the concept. > > It's rather widespread, though. Being relatively inexperienced, Sue > had to be convinced of the need for a database, herself. And I myself > only had the knowledge to suggest it from working at a LAMP shop. I > certainly experienced data loss and frustrating file usage > (test_results_bryan_new.really_new, anyone?) in my physics classes, > but we never discussed version control or databases. > > (And for some unknown reason, taking a class in databases always > sounded really boring to me. :) Now, most of what I do is writing SQL, > and I love it...)
I am a grad student at Sac State and I see a lot of CS majors complaining about having to take physics, etc, but I think your post clearly justifies the need to take courses in outlying areas. brian -- Brian Lavender http://www.brie.com/brian/ _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
