riddle@woton.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle ) (07/15/87)
schaffer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Schaffer) writes: > 1. For prospective majors, an introductory course serves as an > invitation to the field. We want to make it as exciting as > possible, to attract bright students, and, at the same time, > we want to discourage hackers who believe computer science > is a synonym for programming. I consider myself to be a programmer, not a computer scientist, and have enough respect for the field of computer science to recognize the difference. However, I got my undergraduate degree in CS and think that a computer science department is the logical place to learn the academic underpinnings of the craft of programming. Not all computer scientists seem to agree with me, and in fact my chief complaint against my alma mater (a struggling top ten CS department which shall remain nameless) was the low priority it gave to undergraduate education. My question is this: if you want to discourage "hackers" from becoming computer science majors, where do you intend to teach computer programming? [By the way, Schaffer's book sounds interesting, and I wish it had been around when I was starting out.] --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Shriners Burns Institute. --- riddle@woton.UUCP {ihnp4,harvard,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!woton!riddle