[Omaha.pm] Academic vs Production Code

Mario Steele mario at ruby-im.net
Mon Aug 27 13:55:41 PDT 2012


That is the problem with any computer field, you can have a degree, but be
a complete bafoon, or be a self taught, and rock the world, but most
companies will take the bafoon over the guy that rocks cause of the degree.
On Aug 27, 2012 4:04 PM, "Bill Brush" <bbrush at gmail.com> wrote:

> You see the same thing in a lot of disciplines.  Computer sys admins who
> have never worked with real server grade hardware, who know nothing about
> planning for redundancy, etc.  Likewise you get electrical engineers who
> have built theoretical circuits but have never had to produce a working
> circuit with real world components.
>
> Frankly I'm beginning to wonder if college really gives you anything
> useful other than a checkbox "yep, got a degree"
>
> Bill
>
> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 10:23 AM, Jay Hannah <jay at jays.net> wrote:
>
>> [From http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/boulder-pm/2012-August/001095.html]
>>
>> On Aug 27, 2012, at 9:50 AM, Walter Pienciak <
>> wpiencia at thunderdome.ieee.org> wrote:
>> > Academic code seems barebones, with the logic and working of the
>> > program evident.  Think of the examples in most textbooks.
>> >
>> > Production code has acknowledgment of "shit that happens."  Full
>> > disks, data input outside expected parameters, trying to open
>> > nonexistent files, etc.  This the realm of Rob's comments, IMO.
>>
>>
>> -nod-  In my two rounds of being "computer science adjacent" (1993, 2010)
>> I was amazed, both times, at how poorly CS mapped to programming computers
>> for a living. There's a lot of conversational overlap, but academia's
>> refusal to get "bogged down" in any particular toolset leaves students
>> undercooked for being code monkeys.
>>
>> And 95% of computer science students don't want to be programmers...?
>> Really? What % of CS-targeted jobs will be programming all day?
>>
>> They're still not teaching version control? (ANY version control system?)
>> Isn't this like an art student having no concept of a paint brush?
>>
>> As you can tell, I have many energetic beefs with computer related
>> academia.  :)
>>
>> jhannah
>> Omaha.pm
>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/jhannah
>>
>>
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>
>
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