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Comment by jquery | Hacker News Reader

> I think that's because university teaches abstractions and pretty much nothing else.

Maybe my CS degree was unique (I don't think it was), but at the 400 level we had specialization choices including security, graphics, web development, databases, operating systems, embedded, software engineering, etc.

> A project that is done in the average CS class will be presented as a way to teach a design pattern rather than teaching how to solve a problem.

Design patterns != algorithms. My professors actually spent precious little time teaching me how to program, most of that was self-taught. What they taught me to do was how to solve problems, and that education has been very useful.

If your CS professors are spending most of their time teaching you design patterns, you should ask for a refund. The only CS class that taught me design patterns was my 400-level software engineering course.

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That's not quite what I meant, most CS classes cover many other things than design patterns.

The problem is more that in an undergrad degree you are unlikely to need to do any large scale (by industry standards) project. So the way that they teach you good design is largely forced and the most academic way to do that is through a "design patterns" type class where the project that you are building is small enough not to require design patterns in the first place.

This will then educate people that you should really always look for patterns to apply and ways to abstract things since you will be artificially marked up at college for building abstractions and will look for them in every problem you have.

On the other hand someone who is more taught by experience will start by writing awful code like putting their whole program into 1 or 2 functions , they will then experience pain points because of this and realise certain re-occuring problems and either come up with their own solutions to them or read "gang of 4" , this will teach them design patterns the natural way.

This is exactly how I taught myself. The transition from unorganized to organized (patterns) happened for me pretty naturally. For me, it was learn how to organize, or quit. Now-a-days, patterns are everywhere (and probably have been, but I didn't get it until I got it :)

+1 reminds me of j2ee pet shop. Beautiful abstractions; low as a dog.

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