Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[kaz@vision.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku)]

In article <01bc6189$b074f500$LocalHost@xhv46.dial.pipex.com>,
Nick Roberts <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
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>Kaz Kylheku <kaz@vision.crest.nt.com> wrote in article
><5le6vf$15p@bcrkh13.bnr.ca>...
>[...]
>> Heck, I propose that we do away with learning all together. We should
>instead
>> hold retreats in the woods to get in touch with those engineers inside of
>us
>> that are just yearning to be set free!  Only then will we develop better
>> software, in the most natural way. 
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>Kaz, this approach may well produce crap software, but it sounds like a lot
>of fun for the programmers :-)

I don't know what I was ranting about. It was sort of my sarcastic reaction to
all this ``computer science bad, experience good'' business. My point is that
in other engineering fields (if SW engineering can indeed be considered one) 
practitioners do not denigrate the theoretical underpinnings. Computer science
is a good thing, even if the pure theoretical foundations don't teach you
how to construct software.

I believe that CS programs should stand on their own.  A good CS education
offers things that are not quite covered in engineering or mathematics
programs, even though there are sometimes significant overlaps.

At my alma mater, there was an interesting situation: some of the upper
division computer science courses had precise electrical engineering
counterparts.  If a student somehow took both counterparts, credit would have
been awarded for just one, and either one counted as an equivalent prerequisite
to other courses or for graduation requirements. Among these courses were intro
to operating systems, computer graphics and computer architectures. The
consensus among the students was that the CS versions of these courses were far
more challenging and interesting, with better lecturers. As a result, we
had quite a few engineers in these classes.

A lot of CS subject matter just doesn't fit into engineering or mathematics,
though it could fit if the school of engineering had a specific deparment
for software engineering.

Should an engineering school teach compiler construction, distributed systems
or artificial intelligence courses? Should a mathematics department?

There are schools which have folded computer science and engineering
departments together, and it does seem to work.

>Then again, maybe Microsoft got there first?

:)
>Nick.
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