[dragonwriter]

> In most other jobs, it's harder to earn a PhD in the field while not being able to perform basic skills competently. But not computer science.

I think that you are confusing "computer science" with "software development". It may be easy to get a Ph.D. in computer science and be poorly suited for work in the software development industry, but that's no more surprising than the fact that people can get Ph.D.'s in economics and be poorly suited for work in the finance industry.

Computer science is, obviously, related to software development, and in many cases its possible to take a CS degree that is focused on software development, but CS in general is not software development, and CS degrees in general are not vocational degrees in software development.

The best software developers may need to have extensive knowledge of CS, but merely having extensive knowledge of CS doesn't make you even a competent software developer.

[pklausler]

All that I'm saying is that it's possible to get a degree in CS from some schools without being able to demonstrate a mastery of concepts like pointers or recursion.