Re: Programmers -> Engineers; Engineers -> Programmers

[Alan Brain <aebrain@dynamite.com.au>]

jscheibl@mason2.gmu.edu (Jack W Scheible) wrote:

>In _my_ experience, people who major in Computer Science tend to be
>dullards; if they were not, they would have majored in EE.

>There is nary an engineering curriculum in the country that does not
>require programming, and nary a Computer Science curriculum that
>requires engineering classes.

I admit that in the Dark Ages of 1977, I thought EE majors were masochists. 2nd 
year Pure/Applied Maths, Computer Science and Honours Physics took over 58 hrs/week 
of tutes and lectures, plus 40 or more of assignments (for me, anyway). But Elec Eng 
had 106 hrs/week without assignments. Sheesh!

Of course, the fact that of the 1200 entrants into Comp Sci first year, only 36 
could go onto 3rd year did make the course fairly tough. Pass marks were adjusted 
until enough students failed.

Sample Prac Question (Computer Science):

"Here is the instruction set for a CPU. Design and Build one. (4 Hours)"

About 25% of the Comp Sci and Elec Eng courses were identical, with both streams of 
students in the same classes.

Actually, the above question wasn't that difficult: after the exam, I found that the 
instruction set was for a PDP-8, a very simple CPU indeed. In Physics, we'd learnt 
how to make transistors: In Comp Sci we were given transistors, and learnt how to 
make flip-flops: then we were given flip-flops on chips and learnt how to make ALUs, 
and so forth.

Regards, A.Brain BSc (Comp Sci) Sydney University 1976-81