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Comment by Fargren | Hacker News Reader

Going on a tangent here.

While programming is certainly the most marketable skill of a computer scientist, computer science is not about programming. Computer science is the mathematical study of computation; it's the study of processes and of information. It is possible to be a great computer scientist without knowing how to program.

This doesn't excuse the university of Rwanda: programming is possibly the best tool we have to teach CS these days, and it is a skill that most computer scientists should grok. But I do think a CS degree's value is not only measured by how good a programmer it means you are: CS is a scientific field, not engineering.

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Lacking tangible skills, it's hard to evaluate whether someone is a "great computer scientist".

Can you be a "great artist" if you can't even draw? How about a "great architect" if you don't know how to build a house?

Possessing the basic skills in your field of study, I think is a prerequisite for acquiring the advanced skills and the ability to contribute to the state if the art.

There are other tangible skills a computer scientist should have, other than programming. The ability to demostrate graph properties, solve computability and complexity problems, explain and develop algorithms are all things that don't require programming at all. Some of my best teachers at college are not great because of their programming skills, but because they are great at other areas of CS.

Though i am inclined to agree with you i do think this distinction might be appreciated in the context. What i mean is, when a person is starving he doesn't really care if his food is from a 2 hat or a 3 hat restaurant.

Having said that, i view programming as a tool which is to be used for solving problems. But i would expect a CS major who wants to work in the industry to be really proficient with his or her tools, and that includes programming.

A CS Researcher might be able to get away without any knowledge of programming in a university setting, but could be out of place in the real world unless he focuses on a speciality which is in high-demand.

I once had the experience of sub-contracting work to one of the best universities in my country and found that both the students and the professors involved with the project were not familiar with coding. Thankfully i could train them on coding with minimal effort since they had a background in rigorous mathematics.

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