[the_af]

Agreed. Besides, SPJ is not advocating teaching without computers at all. He just discusses de-emphasizing the "cool tech" aspect of CS, but also says that completely excluding computers wouldn't be much fun.

The relevant slide states about programming (and computers and tech):

    - Crucial, motivating, and "ground truth".
    - But also seductive, distracting, and risks excessive focus on technology details

It's hard for me to disagree with either claim.

SPJ is also not talking about "irrelevant knowledge without practice". I won't reiterate all his points, because that's what the lecture is for, but he stresses the practical parts as well as the theoretical parts, and he never claims CS should be taught "without practice".

[hogFeast]

Whether he is advocating it or not, this is essentially how things have turned out. In the UK, they are examining on DS&A for 16 year olds. Yes, there is a "programming" module but there is no actual content...the questions are: "how do you declare a variable", "what is the difference between for/while", and about different paradigms (these aren't taught in themselves, you just need to know what they are).

Btw, to be totally clear: the reason why this doesn't work is because we have been here before. The majority of the UK's leaders grow up doing whatever they think is valuable, and can totally disregard what other people need/want. The idea of practical knowledge makes no sense. You see this in CS courses that have no programming (again, my city has a very good CS dept...turns out grads who have only written a few hundred lines in their life). And it happens in a ton of other courses.

I get the idea of knowledge for it's own sake is very important for some people. But, again, look at the practice...this is how it is has turned out.