A Computer Science Engineering major…well, you get the idea.
My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science (not even any “Engineering”, just plain old academic Computer Science).
Included in the requirements for said major were two semesters of “Design & Implementation of Software Applications”. The class was taught by a tech industry veteran and successful entrepreneur (he was an “associate professor” or some such, i.e. teaching this class was a side job for him), and it dealt directly with practical, real-world software engineering skills, including development methodologies, requirements specification, etc., in addition to the usual techniques of object-oriented application development and so on.
Other classes included Operating Systems (where we did not simply study theory but did things like writing a process scheduler), Computer Graphics, and more; and the final project for the degree was “find some professor / office / organization on campus that needs some app written, or piece of research code, or other useful piece of software, and write it for them”.
So… the idea that CS degrees don’t teach skills, seems to me to be extremely far-out.
In fact I was taught how to use the command line—in college (in one of the required courses for my degree), and in my high school Computer Science classes as well.[1] We weren’t taught Vim (why are you so focused on Vim, anyway…?), but we were taught the basics of emacs. (In any case, learning how to use specific text editors is surely something that you can learn on your own…? And if not, then what business do you have being a programmer?)
I even took some sort of supplemental/optional college-level classes, while in high school (this was a long time ago, so I don’t recall what this program was, nor any other administrative details); one of those was a class in C programming—and there, too, we absolutely were taught how to use the command line.
Most programmers I know a handful of commands but are not otherwise comfortable with the command line. I was teased for using it at my first software development job. I was once hired to privately tutor a computer science student how to use the command line (among other things) because her school never taught her how to use it and she failed out of her first Systems class due to this omission. I’ve taught basic Unix skills to a friend with a master’s degree in computer science.
I’m focused on Vim for reasons complicated enough to deserve their own separate post and because Vim best illustrates the taboo I’m trying to elucidate.
My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science (not even any “Engineering”, just plain old academic Computer Science).
Included in the requirements for said major were two semesters of “Design & Implementation of Software Applications”. The class was taught by a tech industry veteran and successful entrepreneur (he was an “associate professor” or some such, i.e. teaching this class was a side job for him), and it dealt directly with practical, real-world software engineering skills, including development methodologies, requirements specification, etc., in addition to the usual techniques of object-oriented application development and so on.
Other classes included Operating Systems (where we did not simply study theory but did things like writing a process scheduler), Computer Graphics, and more; and the final project for the degree was “find some professor / office / organization on campus that needs some app written, or piece of research code, or other useful piece of software, and write it for them”.
So… the idea that CS degrees don’t teach skills, seems to me to be extremely far-out.
I meant that a CS degree usually doesn’t teach basic skills like how to use Vim and the command line. A CS degree teaches operating systems just fine.
In fact I was taught how to use the command line—in college (in one of the required courses for my degree), and in my high school Computer Science classes as well.[1] We weren’t taught Vim (why are you so focused on Vim, anyway…?), but we were taught the basics of emacs. (In any case, learning how to use specific text editors is surely something that you can learn on your own…? And if not, then what business do you have being a programmer?)
I even took some sort of supplemental/optional college-level classes, while in high school (this was a long time ago, so I don’t recall what this program was, nor any other administrative details); one of those was a class in C programming—and there, too, we absolutely were taught how to use the command line.
Most programmers I know a handful of commands but are not otherwise comfortable with the command line. I was teased for using it at my first software development job. I was once hired to privately tutor a computer science student how to use the command line (among other things) because her school never taught her how to use it and she failed out of her first Systems class due to this omission. I’ve taught basic Unix skills to a friend with a master’s degree in computer science.
I’m focused on Vim for reasons complicated enough to deserve their own separate post and because Vim best illustrates the taboo I’m trying to elucidate.