Re: OT: The Geek defense

"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Bill Gunshannon" <billg999@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Judson McClendon" <judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
"Michael Mattias" <mmattias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It has always puzzled me why so many (particularly COBOL) people hesitate to make the leap to a different language, when
"programming ability" is an underlying skill, that really shouldn't be language dependent...

You are assuming the presence of fundamental programming skills.

However, many of the modern development tools/environments allow "developers" to create applications without ever learning
those
fundamentals. A few clicks, a few drags, a few drops and presto! you can call yourself a programmer.

With no such tools available, people of our generation HAD to learn the fundamentals, so for us changing languages or
development
environments is pretty straightforward... except when we find ourselves in one of these newfangled IDEs where fundamentals
don't
matter.

You're right. And when these new "programmers" face a situation that
requires actual programming skills, they're lost. I think a demarcation
between the two different skills would be useful. Perhaps something
like "application assembler" rather than "programmer" would be a
better description for such people. It always gets me when people
who can only write HTML (for example) claim to be "programmers."
It's like a typist claiming to be an "author."

I've mentioned this here before, but a cousin of mine who is the same
age as me, and has a MS in CS, and has taught CS at university level,
has a daughter who just finished her BS in CS. He made sure she did
learn good programming skills, but said he was dismayed that the
university CS department put so little emphasis on it.

If you are disappointed now, take a look at "Angel" the "new" way
to teach programming at the University level. Things do not bode
well for our industry in the not too distant future.

On the contrary, I think the future is bright. (Mind you, I'm an optimist and I ALWAYS think the future is bright :-))

The "programming" you are bewailing is no longer relevant. As I may have mentioned here before, it was a phenomenon of the latter
half of the 20th century.

Judson's cousin is simply dismayed by change. The University have it right.

If you did a Masters in English, would you expect to learn Sanskrit?

Do you need more than a passing knowledge of Greek, German, and Latin to study English Literature?

Pete, I think you're missing the point. I agree that what they're teaching
now is sufficient for most applications programming. But for the foreseeable
future, we will still need skilled programmers to build the tools. You aren't
going to build .NET, for example, using .NET or other drag and drop tools.
If we aren't teaching those skills in our Computer Science curriculums,
where are future programmers going to learn them?
--
Judson McClendon judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


.

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