Sobre "modas" nos curricula de Ciência da Computação

["Alejandro C. Frery" <acfrery@gmail.com>]

Car*s,

A discussão é também relevante para a Estatística, que tanto usa computação.

Abraços,

Alejandro


http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/2008/01/are_future_programmers_being_t.html

Are Future US Programmers Being Taught to be Unemployable?

In an article titled, "Computer Science Education: Where Are the
Software Engineers of Tomorrow?" in this month's CrossTalk (the
Journal of Defense Software Engineering) and in a subsequent interview
in Datamation under the title of "Who Killed the Software Engineers",
two emeritus computer science professors from New York University
argue that universities are so desperate to keep computer science
student enrollments up, that they are dumbing down the curriculum to
attract prospect students. This dumbing down, professors Robert B.K.
Dewar and Edmond Schonberg say, is producing software engineers with a
"set of skills insufficient for today's software industry (in
particular for safety and security purposes), and, unfortunately,
matches well what the outsourcing industry can offer. We are training
easily replaceable professionals."

Dewar says in the interview that, " 'A lot of it is, 'Let's make this
[computer science and programming] all more fun.' You know, 'Math is
not fun, let's reduce math requirements. Algorithms are not fun, let's
get rid of them. Ewww – graphic libraries, they're fun. Let's have
people mess with libraries. And [forget] all this business about
'command line' – we'll have people use nice visual interfaces where
they can point and click and do fancy graphic stuff and have fun.' "

Dewar goes on, " 'Universities tend to be in the raw numbers mode. Oh
my God, the number of computer science majors has dropped by a factor
of two, how are we going to reverse that?' "

Dewar and Schonberg point out in their article that companies like
UK-based Praxis (see an article on the company published in IEEE
Spectrum) who use formal methods to develop safety-critical systems
are having a hard time finding people with the proper mathematical
training, even though formal methods are taught in more in the UK than
in the US.

I blogged a few months ago about Cambridge University having trouble
recruiting computer science students, with part of the reason for the
troubles being that the program, in Cambridge's words, "is a rigorous
and demanding course." Yesterday's Globe and Mail also had a story
about computer science enrollments dropping at many Canadian
Universities by 36% to 64%.

The article has caused a stir in the defense community, with Dewar
saying that he has received a lot of support for the position in their
CrossTalk article.

But is the situation as dire as professors Dewar and Schonberg claim,
or a natural issue of supply and demand, or is it over-blown, being
one of those, "When I was your age, I had to walk fifty miles to
school" arguments, or is it something else?


--
Alejandro C. Frery
Maceió, AL - Brazil

Quod Natura no dat, Helmantica non praestat