Episode 371 Feedback

[clay]

The Posse focuses way too much on programming languages and tools and
skips over domain expertise and the importance of academics for
specific software domains.

The Posse criticized universities for language choice: being slow to
adopt Java and now being slow to adopt something simpler for web
development. The local university and community colleges where I live
absolutely offer "continuing education" type classes with this applied
approach. They have Python or Rails web development classes, database
classes, network admin classes, and computer graphics and video game
development classes. These classes absolutely have more programming
language and dev tool variety of the type you discuss.

However, from an academia perspective, the premier undergraduate
curriculums try to avoid the applied trade skills and teach more
conceptual subjects. The CS curriculum at my local university, has at
most, one class about "programming". All the other classes teach some
other concept, such as algorithms or data structures or data mining or
machine learning. Most of these classes involve programming, but
merely as an aid to teach a concept. Secondly, the dominant
programming languages used in university courses aren't the C/Java/
Python/Ruby class of languages used for general purpose production
software, but the Matlab/R type languages which are intended for
engineering/math/statistical prototype work.

There are certain skill sets that universities excel at teaching
students: math, statistics, physics, biology, signal processing, etc.
The typical mundane software job doesn't need any of that at all,
which is often a rude shock to graduating students. But on the flip
side, sometimes those skills are absolutely necessary for particular
software domains and they are very hard to learn well or teach outside
the university system.

[Robert Casto]

My own university never chose a language. They preferred to leave that choice up to the students for labs. They have assistants at the labs who could help you. If you chose a language that no one could help you with, then you were on your own. I tried C++ for a couple of classes including an algorithms class and there was no one who could help if I ran into trouble. Pascal and Modula were the first languages they taught. Later there were a couple classes that had C, but they still want to be an academic endeavor, not a technical school.

Moving between languages is made easy when you understand the fundamentals. If all you know is a language, then you will have a hard time moving to another since you don't know computer science.

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[Dick Wall]

Hi Clay

I just wanted to remind folks that this episode was a roundup episode. As such it was an open discussion from the Java Posse Roundup of last year. In the way of such things, the viewpoints in it should not necessarily be attributed to "the Java Posse" as such, we may or may not agree with the views held by attendees from the discussion, and posting the recording of the session similarly does not imply that we agree with, or disagree with, these views. It is simply a posted recording of the session.

Jeez - I sound like a lawyer - was that explanation really necessary?

BTW - if you disagree, by all means join us for the next roundup and let your own voice be heard:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dGZqRnl1M3E4MVJvbUpQdk1jdVlfbXc6MA#gid=0

Dick

[Character That Knows Enough To Be Dangerous]

I agree that you will find some universities on the cutting edge, but
sadly most are not. I thought about getting an advanced degree, but
after meeting with a couple of schools I decided I might better off
learning on my own. I think a field such as Bioinformatics would be a
great fit for some of the newer technologies yet the department seemed
uninterested in the possibilities. It is a great time to be a
developer and yet the academic resources seem to be a bit behind the
times (getting instructors for these courses might be difficult as
well and I get that). Come on people upgrade the curriculum!!! Just
my .02

CTKETBD

> your own voice be heard:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dGZqRnl...
>
> Dick

[clay]

Thanks Dick. I understand that many voices on this recording were non-
Posse participants. I'll fly out to a roundup at some year in the
future :)

I'd love to hear the Posse, or this group, discuss which math/science/
conceptual/domain skills are important, useful, and interesting to
work with?

This would make a perfect open spaces topic, but I'm hoping to hear it
discussed before I can make it out to such an event.

@CTKETBD,

"Bioinformatics", IMO, is just the intersection of regular database/IT
type skills in the life sciences domain. The ideal worker is typically
someone who wants a programming/software type job, is good at that,
and has completed lots of higher-ed life sciences type classes. I
don't think you need bioinformatics specific classes, at least until
you've covered the standard pre-med coursework. And univerisities with
high quality pre-med classes aren't hard to find.