[InclinedPlane]

Annoyingly, there isn't much in the way of change on the horizon for this problem, people seem to like things the way they are.

The problem is that there is no good formalized educational standard for software development training. So instead Computer Science gets shoehorned in as a substitute. This leads both to sub-standard Computer Science degree programs from a pure CS perspective (because they are primarily just trade school educations in disguise) which are even worse as regards to training for Software Engineering. CS is very algorithm and data structure focused, which is good in moderation for dev training, but they usually delve into realms that are not useful even in the "well it's good to have a broad knowledge base" sense. Moreover, CS doesn't typically touch at all on the many practical skills, and their fundamentals, needed to be a good dev, ranging from development cycles and styles to QA and testing fundamentals to source control use and management to proper composition and componentization of software to refactoring and dealing with legacy code to deployment strategies and techniques and then on to familiarity with actual operational systems related to all of these things. Each of those topics has sufficient depth to be an entire course or series of courses, yet they are frequently only barely touched on in CS programs, and sometimes they are ignored entirely.

I've been in hiring loops numerous times, and one of the quickest things I learned about hiring in tech is that a CS degree on a resume means basically nothing, there is almost no correlation between having studied CS in college and being able to code at even the most basic level. Unfortunately, I don't foresee much change in the future on this problem. CS is still a prestige degree (a 4-year degree in one of the coveted STEM fields) and I have a hard time seeing a legitimate Software Development education fitting in the mold of either an arts or sciences degree program at a liberal arts college.

[bjz_]

One interpretation of CS (that I personally subscribe to) is as a subject about the theoretical and mathematical understanding of process and abstraction. Computers and software are just the medium. Taken that way, it's an important subject that should be supported and protected. But but students and employers seem to be expecting CS courses to be an industry training program about specific technologies and practical programming. This leads to a confused mess where nobody is speaking the same language, and limited satisfaction for all parties.