Re: ::scr Touchy Feely?

[Simon Wistow <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 11:29:02AM +0100, Ben Evans said:
> This was linked off /. today, but I thought it was worth a read:
> 
> http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/comp/Publications/CS-TR-02-9.abs.html
> 
> Central Thesis: Computer Science ought to be rooted in programming.
> 
> My capsule review: The authors ought to lay off the empathogens. Some
> of their points are sound, but I can do without the tree-hugging
> hippy crap. ;)

I'd concur with your diagnosis.

I've haven't had time to read all the paper but I can see some of where
they were heading.

My grades in college pretty much spoke for themselves - lousy at some of
the theory but good at the programming. Not to say that I couldn't do
the theory or wasn't interesteted in it - to the contrary I spend a lot
of my time, possibly too much lookign at theoretical stuff now in my
spare time but usually with an eye to the practical. It;s just that it
was too esoteric and vague and seemingly unrooted in real life for it to
involve me.

In my world I see three kinds of programmers (gross oversimplification
but never let real life get in the way of a good rant) 

1. Scientists 
Lose touch with reality and don't remember the gritty soily joys of
getting down and hacking at code. Produce droppings which smell of
Academic Languages which, whilst technically excellent have little or no
practical value.


2. Hackers (such a loaded term but wtf)
Enjoy playing. To do so they're willing to both think esoterically but
also roll up their sleeves and muck in. To paraphrase Alaric Snell -
"like mad old Victorian gentleman scientists"


3. Programmers
Work in large code farms, cooped up in cubicle, chrun out technically
competent VB or C++ or whatever but don't really enjoy it in the way a
hacker does


It's fairly obvious from my descriptions which group I prefer and
personally I would to have liked to see more Hackery style sutff in my
college lectures - indeed I started taking courses where the lecturers
infused their lessons with their own enthusiasm.

Is that the right thing to do though - don't we need equal mixes of
academics, assembly line programmers and hackery types?

Simon