Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

It means that a person can get the little things done while knowing very little. But it also means that this person probably will never learn enough to get the big things done.

To be honest, I get secretly frustrated with the lower-level people who now exist in giant hordes. (I rarely tell anyone that.) To me, they are like people who have decided to learn 5% of their field in order to get a few things done, have some fun, and make a living.

These people use tools to create little applications for everyday use. But remember: The tools themselves are also software. But they are a level of software far beyond anything these people could dream of creating. They use languages, editors, compilers, and operating systems; but they don't have the first clue about how to create any of these things or even how they really work.

The most disturbing thing to me, based on interviews I've conducted, is that this seems to include some large fraction of people graduating with a Computer Science degree from supposedly top tier schools with high GPAs that supposedly mean something.

If you want to make really interesting exciting things that have never existed before, if you want to make a tiny little difference in the industry and change the world just a little bit, then you do need that degree. If you want to make the tools and libraries that the lower-level people use, you do need that degree.

The tools and libraries aren't sentient AI yet. If you want to use the tools and libraries at a high level, then you really need to have some knowledge about how they work. The disturbing thing I might be seeing, is that something like 40% of graduates from even good schools have that Computer Science degree, yet really only have that 5% knowledge, yet have been led to think that they know more.

I think the mistake a lot of people make is the split between you need a degree and degrees are worthless. Degrees are largely what you make out of them.

I have been going through a bachelors of computer engineering and the curriculum/professors make every effort to provide as much value as possible yet most students do just enough work to get the grade they want in the class.

In this same vein, students so often take the required courses, look for the easiest (instead of the best) teachers, and try to pick the easiest, lowest effort classes out of the in major classes they can choose between (tech electives) rather than focusing on building a useful base of knowledge for their future careers. Many students intentionally avoid useful classes because they are hard and don't want to risk damaging their precious GPA. I find this accounts for a lot of the grads with very high GPAs but with fairly limited knowledge outside of the basics. This ends up with students putting the cart before the horse by focusing on how to be best suited for getting a job rather than how to be well prepared for it.

The true value of a CS/ECE degree comes from the classes that you take not the degree itself. Much of that material (particularly the fringe optional courses) can be very difficult to grasp on your own and having a professor dedicated to assisting in your understanding of that material is extremely valuable.

Degrees are largely what you make out of them.

Agreed. I think a lot of people take CS to get a GPA, network, get a good list of impressive sounding internships, and work with buzzword-compliant libraries.

What this is missing is that programming is not one job, it is multiple different jobs with different required skillsets and aptitudes.

Making tools and libraries is not necessary that complicated. It is oftentimes simpler then making large business app, because requirements tend to be clearer, more stable and because you can copy design of one of existing editors. It does require knowledge of algorithms that large business app does not require. Being able to make a compiler will not make you succeed in creating good finished web app, whether large or small. Finishing web app does require good grasp of ui and visual design completely irrelevant to compiler coding. Likewise, being good at algorithms, even difficult ones, and being good at maintainable design is not the same.

It is possible for one to be objectively harder in some sense or require more rare aptitude. Nevertheless, these kind of laments tend to rely mostly on "the kind of things I like and are good at are the real tech and everything else is for weaker programmers" attitudes.

The point of CS is not to make you highly skilled in operating systems or languages or even web apps. It is to give you overall idea about those areas to make you able to choose what to focus on and to make you able to learn any of these ideas once you decide.

The point of CS is not to make you highly skilled in operating systems or languages or even web apps. It is to give you overall idea about those areas to make you able to choose what to focus on

My point is that those overall ideas are lacking in substance and understanding. People should have just enough background knowledge to keep themselves out of trouble and off of toes. So many CS grads seem to lack even that.

> people graduating with a Computer Science degree from supposedly top tier schools with high GPAs that supposedly mean something

Who claimed that a high GPA from a top tier school meant something? Top tier schools are notorious for giving As to everyone. The point is that you got in.

Surely that's a transitive point. If the fact that they got in is supposed to be meaningful, then surely the high GPA is just some arbitrary slice of that meaningfully distinguished group. Yet they're still often clueless.

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