home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:12025 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3764
- Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!sl31+
- From: sl31+@andrew.cmu.edu (Stephen M. Lacy)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
- Subject: Re: The sin of MicroSoft
- Message-ID: <cfI29cm00iUz00yONH@andrew.cmu.edu>
- Date: 10 Jan 93 03:19:36 GMT
- Article-I.D.: andrew.cfI29cm00iUz00yONH
- Organization: Junior, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
- Lines: 96
- In-Reply-To: <1993Jan10.052832.17854@msi.com>
-
- Excerpts from netnews.comp.os.os2.advocacy: 10-Jan-93 Re: The sin of
- MicroSoft by Bill Poitras@west.msi.co
- >
- > Pete Skelly (petesk@microsoft.com) wrote:
- > : Most people in the core of computer science tend to think things like
- > : "address space" or "processing speed" are all computers are. They study
- > : algorithms and logic in order to build more powerful machines designed
- > : to help in the study of algorithms and logic. A lot of them are stuck on
- > : ideas on how to make a computer do more than one thing at a time, but have
- > : absolutely no idea what those things are. It wasn't until recently that
- > ...
- > I agree that computer science in the commercial world is getting wrapped
- > up in things that are just the surface of computer science. I think
- > this is partly due to the education system. I have a BS in computer
- > science, and I remember that most classes taught me how to program, how
- > to break apart a problem and solve it in a specific language. Others
- > even taught me a little bit about certain technologies like compilers and
-
-
- Ok, I think that maybe you guys aren't up on the current state of
- Computer Science Undergraduate Studies. I'm a third year student in
- computer science here at CMU, and this is what I've been through so far:
-
- [Begin quote from CMU's Undergraduate Catalog]
-
- 15-211: Fundamental structures of Computer Science I
- Fundamental programming concepts are presented together with
- supporting theoretical bases and practical applications. This course
- emphasizes the practical application of techniques for writing and
- analyzing programs: data abstraction, program verification, and
- performance analysis. These techniques are applied to algorithms on
- linear data structures.
-
- 15-212: Fundamental structures of Computer Science II
- The course continues the presentation of fundamental programming
- concepts begun in 15-211, focusing on mechanisms for the execution of
- programs. Basic notations of computability and implementation
- techniques for emulation between disparate models of computation are
- studied, along with advanced data structures. This course also
- introduces and uses the Lisp programming language
-
- 15-381: Artificial Intelligence - Representation and Problem Solving
- Intelligent computer programs can solve problems, understand natural
- language, even reason about their actions, and learn from experience.
- They do these things by manipulating internal symbolic representation.
- The course will cover the main types of symbolic knowledge
- representation and the main techniques for planning and problem solving.
- LISP, a computer language designed for symbolic programming, will be
- taught during the course, and there will be a required programming
- project in LISP.
-
- 15-462: Computer Graphics
- This course provides an introduction to hardware and software for
- vector and raster graphics systems. Topics covered include
- representation of two- and three-dimensional ofjects, geometric
- transformations, interactive techniques and hidden surface elimination.
-
- [End quote from CMU's Undergraduate catalog]
-
- Ok, here come the clinchers. 15-211 was basically an introduction to
- data structures class, with a little more thrown in. We learned "Big
- Oh" notation, every strain of finite automata you could imagine (NFA,
- DFA, etc. etc.) Also, we touched on compiler design and parsing by
- writing a "micro-C" compiler, assebler, and a program to run our
- 'assembly' code. But wait, the language used was "C" YET IT WAS NEVER
- TAUGHT IN THE COURSE. Thankfully, I knew C fairly well already, but for
- those of you who didn't, they were screwed. Some made it through, but
- not a whole lot.
-
- 15-212 doesn't sound so bad, except for the same clincher that came with
- 15-211, we're using Scheme, BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TO TEACH IT TO YOU.
- (Scheme is a dialect of Lisp) By the end of this course we wrote a
- metacircular evaluator. What this is, is a program that says "Implement
- Scheme in Scheme" without using the (eval '...') expression. We also
- covered completeness, and all that stuff (what does 'NP' stand for
- again?)
-
- Artificial intelligence was pure theory. We had one progrmming
- assignment in Lisp, which was to re-write the huristic function for
- Tic-Tac-Toe so that it was better than it currently was. This
- assignment was VERY early in the course, and I think because no one knew
- Lisp (we had all learned Scheme) he dropped the rest of the programming
- assignments. We did just about everything in AI problem solving thats
- been done. Pure theory.
-
- 15-462: Computer graphics. Now, assuming that you've already learned
- everything yourself, we're going to let you use what you've learned.
- "Using any computer and any programming language, and any operating
- system you wish, implement the following...." 2D transformations, 3D
- trans., 3D projections, Ray-tracers, particle systems, splines,....must
- I go on?
-
- Please, give us more credit than you are. Things have changed a lot in
- the last few years.
-
- "Emma, please stop chewing on my purple love seat."
-