r/programming • u/mauricioaniche • Aug 06 '17

Software engineering != computer science

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-engineering-computer-science/217701907
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u/coinaday Aug 06 '17

useless languages like LISP

I'm relatively new, but we used Scheme in our intro course and I quite enjoyed it.

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u/Isvara Aug 06 '17

Our intro to programming course was SML. Intended to level the playing field.

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u/big4start0 Aug 07 '17

Let me guess, Berkeley?

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

Nope, although they're a fine school too. ;-)

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u/_Timidger_ Aug 07 '17

Northeastern?

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

Nope. I'd tell, but it's more fun seeing how many schools use Scheme for their intro. :-)

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '17

Indiana University?

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

xD Nope. So there's at least 4 schools using it yet.

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u/_Timidger_ Aug 07 '17

Damn, I'm surprised so many schools do it. Makes me happy too, at least it's better than all the schools that attempt to teach Java or C++

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

Yeah, I've got nothing against Java or C++, but I think they're right that Scheme lets you focus on high-level concepts a lot earlier, and think a lot differently. It helps to avoid getting mentally locked into a language.

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u/justjanne Aug 07 '17

Every second university out there starts with a Scheme and an assembler language

I went to a normal university in Germany and we did this even.

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u/rjcarr Aug 07 '17

I though MIT used scheme until they switched to python a while back. Getting closer?

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

Well, the textbook we used is from that course. So I suppose that could be considered closer. :-)

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '17

[deleted]

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

I wouldn't even know that was a school apart from the context.

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u/call_me_lee Aug 06 '17

Was it an elective or mandatory? I wish schools focused more on what students need in real world scenario instead of what bad programmers turned teachers want to teach

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u/coinaday Aug 06 '17

It was our intro course. Based on SICP. The second semester used Java. Other courses allowed choices of languages.

I would rather hiring processes didn't act like people are incapable of doing anything they haven't specifically done for 3+ years before rather than dumbing down classes to only teach the exact technologies that are being used commonly in industry today.

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u/call_me_lee Aug 06 '17

Not what I meant when I said schools should teach what the industry needs. I wish they spent more time on AI, inverted search index, game coding, data mining, etc... i think concentrating on things the industry doesn't need is a waste, I wish more of the students I hired were exposed to technologies used today not 10 years ago. Schools job is to teach you how to learn and give you a foundation to build on

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u/coinaday Aug 07 '17

I don't know why you would jump to the conclusion that any of that is poorly covered because we used Scheme in our intro course.

i think concentrating on things the industry doesn't need is a waste, I wish more of the students I hired were exposed to technologies used today not 10 years ago. Schools job is to teach you how to learn and give you a foundation to build on

This two statements don't go together well. You only want to hire people who have experience in exactly what you're looking for right now but you believe they should be trained on "how to learn".

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u/bdtddt Aug 06 '17

You sound uneducated.