[fuzzy2]

That’s cool. Now, on to my possibly unpopular opinion: This isn’t what computer science is about. In fact, you don’t even need to use a computer to do computer science.

Sure, some stuff you learn in CS can make you a better software engineer. CS cannot make you a software engineer.

CS can definitely not make you adept at using computers and neither should it. That’s something earlier education institutions must tackle.

It’s always good to have optional courses for various topics of interest. _Requiring_ students to learn, say, MS Office (I had to), is just plain ridiculous.

[Nitramp]

Science doesn't abstractly drop from the heavens, fully formed. Every science has practical enablers that are required to get stuff done. Astronomers use telescopes, physicists/chemists/etc use lab equipment, Mathematicians use various notations and other tricks (and nowadays proof assistants) to make their job easier.

MS Office might not be practical for computer science (also note how the OP doesn't list that), but learning how to write your papers in latex might, and knowing how to use a shell certainly is.

E.g. if you'd like students to learn about type theory, they will need to experiment with your compiler. You cannot expect students to miraculously be proficient in this, and explicitly teaching them (and requiring it as a prerequisite course to signal that yes, it's important) can turn weeks of frustration followed by a huge dropout rate into a productive course.

[swiley]

They should be writing them in asciidoc (or even markdown) and using style sheets if they really need complex formatting!!! (although at least latex is decent at typesetting and has nice defaults.)

[whatshisface]

Does asciidoc have equation typesetting support? I don't really care what I use to write my words, everything is equally good (except for LaTeX which is abnormally good at typesetting), but I care a lot about the user experience for equations, which varies widely between programs.

[swiley]

I always use LaTeX style equations although I think it supports MathML if you want a WYSIWYG. The LaTeX math is the main argument for it, mathtype is kind of miserable.

The reasons I prefer asciidoc to straight LaTeX are:

1) the formatting is completely seperated from the text

2) you’re insulated from the specific rendering engine (you can use PDFLaTeX or WebKit+MathJax etc.) while still getting decent equation syntax and BibTeX.

[Nitramp]

Yes. I intended that more as an abstract example for a tool that's useful to do science, but clearly not a science in of itself[1].

Though latex might still come in handy once you actually want to submit papers to journals, or for a thesis. YMMV.

[1] then again, if I remember my feeble attempts to write latex macros, maybe the emergent behaviour of common latex packages would be a good research subject? ;-)

[olalonde]

> That’s cool. Now, on to my possibly unpopular opinion: This isn’t what computer science is about.

This is not an unpopular opinion at all, CS degrees do not typically cover what's in this class which is precisely why they called it "the missing semester".

[fuzzy2]

Yes, it is exactly this naming that somehow irks me. It somehow seems to imply that this should be part of the regular CS curriculum. It should not.

Indeed, universities should once again become a place where you go to pursue a career in science. Not a half-baked vocational training center. That’s why I’m against excessively accommodating this misuse.

[gowld]

Are you saying that you completed a CS degree without writing programs on a computer?

There are many great experimental physicists (including Richard Feynman), chemists, biologists, and engineers who used real hardware. Why shouldn't computer scientists use real hardware?

[fao_]

Wasn't it Sussman and Ableson that said that Computer Science is both not a science, and not about computers?

[geofft]

Yes, and MIT (correctly) dropped Sussman and Abelson's head-in-the-clouds intro class in favor of a practical one that actually teaches you about computers.

I took Abelson and Sussman's class myself, as an MIT undergrad, just before it was phased out. I got a lot out of it, because I had already been using UNIX and writing code for years at home as a teenager. If you didn't have that background it would be useless to you.

"Computer science isn't about computers" is a similar statement to "English composition isn't about pens or keyboards." If you can't use the tools, you won't get very much work done. A writer is fortunate that our grade schools generally teach handwriting and/or typing - but if they didn't, a college degree on how to tell compelling stories and understand the monomyth isn't going to help you actually write books. Computer science isn't about using editors or shells, but if you don't come in with knowledge of editors or shells, you won't get very much done.

[pattisapu]

Your comment reminds a bit of Umberto Eco's How to Write a Thesis. He gets down into details of using colored pens and index cards. Craft.

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/umberto-eco-how-to-write-...

[gjm11]

Yup.

'Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction that “computer science” is not a science and that its significance has little to do with computers.' -- from the preface to SICP.

There's a similar quotation often attributed to Dijkstra, but it seems doubtful whether he actually said it.

[fuzzy2]

I didn’t, because I switched to a different type of university. I could have, though.

I’m not saying science should be only in the mind or maybe pen and paper. I’m saying CS should not have a “how to computer” course.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's not computer science. It is computer literacy.

Most people who come out of a CS course will go on to become developers, not academics. The course topics are standard domain knowledge for anyone who builds software - not because of specific tools, but because of the concept that scripting and automation tools exist to make development easier.

There is no sense in which being aware of these topics will make you less effective as an academic computer scientist, if that's what you want to be.

[type0]

Also it's good to get both academics and developers to use similar tools to ease collaboration.

[marcosdumay]

Astronomers do stop to study how to build telescopes, chemists do stop to study how to create glassware, and biologists do stop to study culture media.

Why do you expect CS students to thrive without learning how to use a computer?

[magduf]

It's only with CS where I see this crazy attitude that you don't need to know anything about the tools of implementation and experimentation in order to pursue a science.

Imagine someone trying to pursue a career in particle physics without knowing anything about how a modern particle collider works. Or someone trying to be an astronomer without knowing anything about how real telescopes work. And at least in those professions, the tools are so huge and expensive and complicated that those scientists really do need an army of technicians and operators to help them gather data or perform experiments; with computers, this just isn't the case: anyone with at least one hand can write a program on a personal computer to test their theory, so the feedback loop should be much, much shorter.

[angry_octet]

While theoretical computer science doesn't need to use computers for many problems, and the experts do not need to be extremely proficient, that does not mean that a general BSc program should not teach fundamental computer architecture and programming skills -- indeed, it would be irresponsible of them not to.

The other aspect is that CS can be experimental -- the experiments are computational ones. Large computing systems are analysed using the standard techniques of experimental science, and that needs good bench skills -- except the bench is being able to program, reason about programs, etc.

However, does a BSc program need to teach large scale software development, topics like version control and tools like git, CI, etc? No. They are more properly in a BE(Software) course or its equivalent.

Should universities teach Flash/Javascript/Python/C#/nginx/Active Directory as an end in itself? No. That is almost a technical trade qualification.

But you should be able to leave university, learn language X, program in it efficiently, and know how to learn about some system.

(I'm sorry you had to learn about Office.)

[fatnoah]

I learned tools the old fashioned way - by asking an upperclassman or TA.

I also remember taking a "Software Engineering" class and it bore little to no resemblance to any part of my 20+ year career.

[mchaver]

It isn't at the core of the CS curriculum, and neither are general requirements, but it is highly relevant to the course work and I am willing to bet it does not only help people interested in software engineering, but also people who want to be CS academics.

Making sure students are familiar with a full featured text editor, document preparation system, a version control system, the command line, etc. will go a long way. I don't think those are topics regularly covered in earlier education institutions.

[lunias]

I think that's reasonable. I really wish they offered more applicable classes at lower levels of education... I did like 2 days of programmable Legos in 5th(?) grade and then had to take a basic typing / MS Office course in 9th grade (required like you). In 11th grade I took CISCO Networking, Computer Manufacturing, and an intro programming course in C++.

After high school, I did a 4 year degree in Computer Science and while I learned a lot about algorithms, proofs, FSMs, design-patterns, etc. We got very little practical experience building software.

It'd be nice if they covered version control, more *nix and text editors, extending an existing codebase, refactoring, debugging, APIs, common libraries, multiple languages, and the web in general.

I think most CS students learn to become software engineers either on the job or on their own and there's room for school to help ease that transition.

[Night_Thastus]

The college I went to attempted to balance these - covering both abstract concepts and concrete tools and practical skills in roughly equal measure.

I think that's fair. Some people will go on to use both to work as a programmer, some may focus much more heavily on the theory end to focus on the science part of CS.

MS Office definitely doesn't seem to have a place. Maybe for a general "computer competency" course for college students, but not as part of a CS program.