[cfeduke]

> do cool things with CS (GUI stuff, web stuff), the better CS education will be

The issue is these skills don't solve serious or interesting problems. GUI and web programming have become easier than ever and requires less programmers on staff to perform. My company can't find enough qualified engineers with a good depth of knowledge in CS.

I've found functional concepts have been incredibly important in shipping maintainable code on the JVM using both Java 8 and Scala.

[brianchu]

We're discussing what freshmen in CS should be learning, not what sophomores/juniors/seniors should be learning. Getting people hooked on cool, albeit superficial, things they can build is the right way to get a broader range of people interested in CS (as opposed to just people who started programming before coming to college).