Comment by UK-Al05 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by UK-Al05 | Hacker News Reader

I find threads like these funny, people complain about not enough software engineering such as not knowing design patterns or the details of a java implementation. On the other hand a different group complain about the lack of of 'real' cs, which is mostly math.

Two opposing views, but they think the argument is both in their favour.

There is also a massive backlash against universities in the UK at the moment. I am seeing many 'apprentice' software developers, and freelance developers skipping university. They tell me they know more than the average university graduate. So I ask them about complexity? Nope. Predicate Logic? Nope. These are things taught in even the lowest polytechnic school and they don't know them. They don't know the bounds of their own ignorance because they think cs is just knowing a few programming languages, whipping up a few apps and websites. They know more languages the average graduate? Maybe. Can they do software engineering? The easy business stuff. Do they know cs? No. I think they have never been exposed to cs and don't how deep it goes.

I've seen the accredited software developer apprenticeship curriculum and it's mostly java and design patterns.

I think the focus on apprenticeships at the moment is creating a generation of software developers who don't know what NP-Complete means.

Computer science is not whipping up applications with fancy design patterns, that's why you're better than them. Give them a few years and their cs background + Software engineering experience will begin to shine.

I attribute that confusion to the fact that the term "Computer Science" is used as a facade for both Computing Science (a branch of mathematics), and the skills necessary to create and deploy software systems (which most of the time doesn't even require "engineering" math).

It's like grouping "Industrial Design" and "Theoretical Physics" under the term "Physics", if "Industrial Design" also included "Product Managment".

There's also the fact that zero science actually happens in a Computer Science department. But since our society worships science, everything has to be science or it's no good! Even stuff that isn't science!

That depends.

In some countries, there are "Exact Sciences" (basically Math and all the derivatives like statistics and computing) and "Natural Sciences" (like physics, chemistry and biology).

But it's all semantics, the important thing (and the thing most people seem to agree upon) is that the status of CS as Science depends of the status of Mathematics as Science.

Most majors with the word Science in them, aren't (political, social, etc.). I am really not sure how that happened.

Social sciences and political science are FAAAR more scientific than computer science.

Computer science makes stuff like psychology, sociology and anthropology look rigorous. They actually do experiments and case studies and use real world evidence you know!

CS papers have more in common with Literature than they do with the widely disparaged soft sciences like psychology.

That is absolutely wrong. I am a PhD student in Computer Science, and I strongly consider what I do more science than engineering. Machine learning is all about making a hypothesis, implementing it, testing it, and observing the results. There is a pressure toward only publishing positive results (no one want to learn about an algorithm that doesn't work), but it's still very much a science.

The same kind of experiments happen in lots of other CS sub-fields: high performance computing, security, etc.

To be fair, you can apply the scientific method to almost anything, but that doesn't make it "science" per se.

For example: product design. You make hypothesis, create a prototype to test it, and then draw conclusions from that.

Maybe "science" depends on the methods, and not on the fields. Maybe everything can be Science if approached scientifically.

It's a science in the same way that math is a science. A "formal science" seems appropriate. My school considered it a natural science, which is just stupid.

Note that most computer "science" classes are stuff like learning java, learning UML, learning software engineering. This stuff is barely engineering, let alone science. It has more in common with a fine art.

Algos and data structures etc are arguably a form of math, depending on the class most likely applied math.

It's not a natural science, and what you're doing is similar to the way artists will use, say, a picture of a DNA molecule to create a cool painting. If they use scientific principles in their art, does that make it a science?

No - what you are describing is a "craft" - a very informal kind of engineering. Architecture is not a science either.

One could say that computer science is a formal science[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_science

That pair is a little far apart. How about maybe "Electronic Engineering", meaning both "Electronics" and "Electrical Engineering"?

> I ask them about complexity? Nope. Predicate Logic? Nope. These are things taught in even the lowest polytechnic school and they don't know them.

Depending on how the university works, students can cheat on homework then barely the exam (thanks to easy, formulaic questions that they can cram the night before), and still get decent marks. The university will compensate, with harder homework and an easier exam the next year.

Also depends on the University full-stop. The CompSci part of my course was canned in favour of business subjects; I had the rug pulled out from under me after the first subject.

(So I got Z-specs, automata and big-O notation. Umm. Thanks guys.)

Are those views really opposing? Do people who ask for more software engineering want it to replace hard CS or augment it?

I think you will find if you start adding design pattern modules or methodology modules. The people on the side of cs will moan about it being watered down.

If you don't add them, the people on the side of software engineering, will say it's not relevant to business needs.

If you try to compromise they both moan about university not being relevant...

Design and methodology can be learned, but are hard to teach.

And they are even harder to teach inside science or engineering schools.

I wonder if this trend will be contained to the UK looking forward. With MITx et al, in my opinion, this could be the beginning of an interesting trend. Technology has only begun to affect education.

I'm actually hoping some apprentice or self taught developers take the "Introduction to algorithm analysis" course from MITX if it's on offer. It's probably one most relevant cs style modules for software developers.

Actually, that's a good point. The UK government has setup their universities to be disrupted by higher quality courses that are not under their jurisdiction.

Maybe that's what they want? There are already the exorbetently expensive "computeach" programs and similar.

They don't know the bounds of their own ignorance

Other people never do, do they? It explains everything. You need look no further.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com