Re: Real-world education (was: Ariane 5 failure)

[Simon Johnston <skj@ACM.ORG>]

Michael Feldman wrote:
> In article <1996Sep29.193602.17369@enterprise.rdd.lmsc.lockheed.com>,
> Chris McKnight <cmcknigh@hercii.lasc.lockheed.com> wrote:
>=20
> [Rich Pattis' good stuff snipped.]
> >
> >  An excellent bit of teaching, IMHO. Glad to hear they're putting =
some
> >  more of the real world issues in the class room.
>=20
> Rich Pattis is indeed an experienced, even gifted teacher of
> introductory courses, with a very practical view of what they
> should be about.
>=20
> Without diminishing Rich Pattis' teaching experience or skill one bit,
> I am somewhat perplexed at the unfortunate stereotypical view you
> seem to have of CS profs. Yours is the second post today to have
> shown evidence of that stereotypical view; both you and the other
> poster have industry addresses.

I think some of it must come from experience, I have met some really =
good, industry focused profs ho teach with a real "useful" view (my =
first serious language was COBOL!). I have also met the "computer =
science" guys, without whom we would never move forward. I have also met =
some inbetween who really don't have that engineering focus or the =
science.
 =20
> This is my 22nd year as a CS prof, I travel a lot in CS education
> circles, and - while we, like any population, tend to hit a bell
> curve - I've found that there are a lot more of us out here than
> you may think with Pattis-like commitment to bring the real world
> into our teaching.

Mike, I know from your books and postings here the level of engineering =
you bring to your teaching, we are discussing (I believe) the balance in =
teaching computing as an engineering discipline or as an ad-hoc =
individual "art".

> Sure, there are theorists, as there are in any field, studying
> and teaching computing just because it's "beautiful", with little
> reference to real application, and there's a definite place in the
> teaching world for them.  Indeed, exposure to their "purity" of
> approach is healthy for undergraduates - there is no harm at all
> in taking on computing - sometimes - as purely an intellectual
> exercise.
>=20
> But it's a real reach from there to an assumption that most of us
> are in that theoretical category.

I don't think many of the people I work with have made this leap.
=20
> I must say that there's a definite connection between an interest
> in Ada and an interest in real-world software; certainly most of
> the Ada teachers I've met are more like Pattis than you must think.
> Indeed, it's probably our commitment to that "engineering" view
> of computing that brings us to like and teach Ada.

Certainly (or as in my case COBOL) it leads you into an application =
oriented way of thinking which makes you think about requirements, =
testing etc.

 [snip]

let me give you a little anecdote f my own.=20
I recently went for a job interview with a very large well-known =
software firm. Firstly they wanted me write the code to traverse a =
binary tree for which they described the (C) data structures. Then I was =
asked to write code to insert a node in a linked list (I had to ask what =
the requirements for cases such as the list being empty or the node =
already existing where). Finally I was asked to write the code to find =
all the anagrams in a given string.
There were no business type questions, no true analytical questions, the =
things which as an engineer I have to do each day. The problems set me =
have a simple and single answer which I don't write each day. I am sure =
you can recite off hand the way to traverse a binary tree, but I have to =
stop and think because I wrote it ONCE, AGES AGO and wrote it as a =
GENERIC which I can REUSE. I know an understanding of these algorithms =
is required so that I can decide which of my generics to use, but that =
is why I invest in good books!
By the way I happen to know someone who works for this firm who told me =
that graduate programmers seem to do well in their interview process, he =
once interviewed an engineer with 20 years industry experience and a PhD =
who got up and left half way through the interview in disgust.

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