Computer Science

[José Isaías Cabrera]

On Friday, October 18, 2024 02:08 PM, Jim Garrison expressed:

> I have an analogy.  Coding is like playing the recorder (fipple-flute,
> "English flute", etc). Any 6-year-old can learn the fingerings well
> enough to carry a tune, but drive to insanity anybody within earshot.
> Learning to code is about as difficult.  In both cases, the gap between
> knowing the fingerings and playing professionally is tens of thousands
> of hours of study and practice.

Great statement.

> Most university courses in "software engineering" don't begin to cover
> the actual knowledge base and, more importantly, internal mental
> processes, discipline and curiosity required to do quality software
> development.  I've had to work with "software engineering" PhDs who have
> no clue.

This is the problem. With today's idea of making everything easier and less difficult, this generation has acquired a taste of entitlement and lack of working hard. With the idea that everything should be given to them, it's hard to be able to acquire the depth and the discipline that is required for your statement above.

The early days of programming in the late 70's and early 80's had, at least, some kind of assembler programming and some basic electronics classes in the curriculum. Once you had understood the depth of what a computer is and how it works, then some easier programming languages classes came (c, RPG, PL/I, COBOL, etc). But the beginning path to becoming a programmer was taking that deep dive in understanding how the hardware (electronics) and the software came together.

So much to say. Thanks for letting me chime in.

josé