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Comment by bregma | Hacker News Reader

Computer programming is to computer science as working a cash register is to economics.

People love to make these weirdly diminutive comments about programmers, precisely because programmers are crushing it. Meanwhile most of the economy has been diverted to attempting to replicate the abilities of even just an entry-level drone who copy/pastes off Medium articles, which itself is heralded as a miracle.

I've heard that a number of times, but the vast majority of people who get into CS do it because they want a high-paying tech job, for which most of what they'll learn at the university is borderline useless (and to the extent that cutting-edge CS research happens, the academia is nowadays usually trailing the industry).

The problem, arguably, is that we don't have reputable trade schools that would actually teach what the students need. But if that changes, I think some CS departments will be in for a rude awakening.

There is such a thing as a Software Engineering degree.

The fact that people keep buying the wrong product (Computer Science degrees) and universities keep selling it, doesn't mean that there's something wrong with Computer Science.

If this is true than I hope that AI kills both computer programming and computer science as fast as possible.

It’s not. If you’re a computer scientist who’s not coding, you are a bad computer scientist. “Those who cannot do, teach”

I dont know where that “Those who cannot do, teach” bullshit came from but it's absolute nonsense someone made up to dunk on teachers.

It doesnt even make sense in your post because "programming" isn't "doing computer science". You're not better than a teacher in any notion because you asked chatgpt to generate some slop.

Professor Felleisen, is that you?

Sorry but that's just nonsense. "Programming" has for a long time been a low level job. In Germany, it is taught as an apprentice level program. CS in practical universities will instead, or rather on top, teach program architecture and planning. At theory focussed universities, you'll learn how an LLM actually works, how to design high or low level protocols, how to design a new algorithm suited to your environment, etc. The programming required for these can be done for personal recreation, be outsourced, or replaced with an existing library as desired.

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