Unix editors
Wilson Heydt
whh at pbhya.PacBell.COM
Fri Jul 29 15:47:50 AEST 1988
In article <1932 at stpstn.UUCP>, aad at stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes:
>
>
> The CMU CS department does not offer a CS undergraduate degree. The reason
> publicly given is that they don't feel you can learn enough about "Computer
> Science" in 4 years to warrant a degree. So I, just like everyone else,
> got my degree in "Applied Math/CS track". My experience there was that
> the whole education, and indeed "Computer Science" as I perceive it, has
> little or nothing to do with computers anymore. You spend your time
Please strike the "anymore." The problem you have described was common
in the late sixties as well--and I assume the intervening years also.
At many institutions "CS" amounted to a math major with a few computer-
related courses thrown in. Useless, unless you're going to be a
"Computer Scientist" (presumably with a Ph.D. teaching at a university).
The unusual place was UC Berkeley--where there were 2 "CS" majors. One
was as you've described in the math dept. The other was in EE and had
a lot more emphasis on computers. This amounted to a fair amount of
programming, some theory, and a good dose of hardware. As a working
programmer, I've found over the years that having a feel for hardware
has been a real help.
The root cause of the problems associated with CS is probably American
universities aversion to anything truly useful.
--Hal
=========================================================================
Hal Heydt | "Hafnium plus Holmium is
Analyst, Pacific*Bell | one-point-five, I think."
415-645-7708 | --Dr. Jane Robinson
{att,bellcore,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!pbhya!whh
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