From: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc,comp.arch,sci.math,soc.college
Subject: Re: Scientists as Programmers (was Re: Small Language Wanted)
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:49:27 GMT
	<1992Aug31.184805.10913@texhrc.uucp>
	<1992Sep1.000910.16548@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Followup-To: soc.college
Organization: Prifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth

On 1 Sep 92 00:09:10 GMT, zweben@linguine.cis.ohio-state.edu (Stu Zweben) said:

zweben> (Larry D. Pyeatt) writes:

Pyeatt> There is very little consensus about what courses a CS degree
Pyeatt> should require.  For my own degree, we were required to take
Pyeatt> Calculus III, Physics, Chemistry, EE and other science and
Pyeatt> engineering courses.

Most probably your faculty was overstaffed in those disciplines, or the
professors in those disciplines had a majority in committees, and they
stuffed the CS degree with places for their people.

I am very perplexed by a CS degree that requires Calculus *III* and
Chemistry. Did you have any course in Logic or Discrete Structures?
Many CS courses that are heavvy in courses like Calculus III and
Chemistry don't include any such. Usually the reason is that pure
mathematicians and logicians have very little clout in the relevant
committees. That Logic and Discrete Structures are the basic of
virtually all of CS is irrelevant.

Pyeatt> However, I have seen many CS graduates from other schools who
Pyeatt> are little more than glorified COBOL programmers.  It really
Pyeatt> annoys me to be lumped in with them.

What's in a name? And what have you got against glorified COBOL
programmers?  They do 80% of the programming in the world.
If you want to distinguish yourself, persuade your alama mater to grant
their CS graduates the title of Pontifex of CS. :-).

More seriously, you are annoyed at the age old distinction between
colleges (more vocational) and unviersities (more educational). It has
been going on forever, and nobody has yet found a solution.

Pyeatt> There is a wide variation in the quality of CS degrees.

There is a wide variation in the quality of CS professors and of
CS students too, even within the dame degree course. At times such
variation is greater than that between degree programmes.

Pyeatt> If you are unhappy with CS graduates, you need only look to
Pyeatt> another university.

Or simply, to investigate people case by case, which is anyhow the only
good trick. Looking at their pedigree does not tell you much anyhow.

zweben> This is one of the main reasons that the Computing Sciences
zweben> Accreditation Board was formed by ACM and IEEE-CS in the
zweben> mid-80s.

Surely you jest here. The CSAB was created mostly because some less well
known Universities want a substitute for the reputation they don't have.
The famous Universities don't need any accreditation, they have a
reputation. And viceversa.

A secondary goal was to create the framework for an eventual future
licensing of computer science professionals, managed by the two
societies above, to provide them with a power base similar to that of
professional bodies of other professions that by tradition and law can
enforce restrictive practices.

Another secondary goal was to create teaching jobs for doctors in CS,
and also in various disciplines that are not as popular as CS in student
numbers, but that are powerful in University politics.

These are the goals of accreditation programmes thruout the world.
Verbiage about "ensuring a minimum standard" is just window dressing,
even if at times (doublethink!) some people that advocate such
programmes honestly believe in it. Too bad there is now way a minimum
standard can be ensured by purely formal requirements:

zweben> Programs that are accredited through CSAB must require 2/5 of a
zweben> year of science (four courses, including the equivalent of a
zweben> two-semester sequence in a lab science for science majors, and
zweben> two other courses in science or with a strong emphasis in
zweben> quantitative methods.  Calculus is also required, as are core
zweben> courses in the major that balance coverage in several areas.

Also, a given percentage of the teaching staff must be a Ph.D., though
not necessarily in the subjects they teach.

zweben> To date, over 100 undergraduate CS programs have been
zweben> accredited.  While no set of criteria is perfect, the
zweben> accreditation process does address Larry's concerns.

As a fig leaf.

Followups to soc.college...
--
Piercarlo Grandi                   | JNET: pcg@uk.ac.aber
Dept of CS, University of Wales    | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@aber.ac.uk
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