Re: [tlug] Running without Gnome/KDE/xfce/whatever. (was: Ubuntu 16.04-LTS Japanese Text Input)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > I fear that the current CS curriculums have traded such useful content
 > for more "practical" courses such as iOS and Android programming.

Bu-wha-ha-ha-ha-ha!  It's much worse than that -- current MBA
curriculums don't teach such useful content either!  It's possible
that only Curt, Josh, and Fred know how to do this now that Watts is
gone. ;-)

At least in the U.S., there's a ray of hope.  A lot of people dislike
the SEI's approach to planning (for good and sufficient reason), but
Watts Humphrey's "PSP" series really is excellent (but don't bother
with "Discipline" unless you need to qualify for ISO 9000).  Humphrey
wrote somewhere that the adoption rates in university courses and
attendance at SEI courses are "gratifying", so apparently it is being
taught somewhere. :-)  Not at Tsukuba-dai, though.

 > I guess it's good that they learn skills for app programming, but I
 > wonder if their foundation is weaker.

Well, I doubt it's much consolation, but with university attendance
rates among 18-23-year-olds pushing 70% in many countries, at all but
the first-rate schools even CS is likely to become a vocational/
technical training course for those who can't do much else, like
education schools long have been.  In some sense Germany and England
have it right with their tracking kids at the age of 14 or so,
graduating the vocational track with skills like carpentry and 6502
assembly language programming :-) at 17, ready to become cannon fodder
for corporate manufacturing.  North America and Japan tend to insist
on a college degree, so as you get down below median, practically
speaking you're going to have to weaken the curriculum to emphasize
skills rather than decision-making.

As I argue in a reply to Curt and Josh, that means that specialized
project managers aren't obsolete, even if they don't see goods ones,
or even the need, around them.

 > Something doesn't look right and it's the lessons mentioned in
 > those books and something else that I can't seem to grasp.

Probably what you're seeing has to do with the fact that management is
fundamentally political.  Politics is the art of getting other people
to do things for you, and this can be very useful when directed toward
appropriate goals, and specifically in the coordination of specialists
or otherwise divided labor.  But exactly the same skills can be used
to amass personal power for personal ends (including defending
yourself against real or imagined threats to your power, for selfish
reasons and for job-relevant reasons).

 > Yes, it would be nice if I had contractors on hand to approach that I
 > trust.

Ahem, that's why you should hang out in LUGs and FLOSS projects, on
company time if possible.  That's where you meet people who can
connect you with people!

 > I'm not sure if curriculum reflects the job market or vice-versa.
 > i.e., what influences what.

In the case of Python, I think it's a coincidence.  Not 100%, but
basically, Python's natural appearance of "executable pseudo-code"
which encourages "top-down" development methodology makes it a great
teaching vehicle.

On the other hand, its strong affinity for non-Python code and
excellent features for text processing make it a great glue language.
As a language, I doubt it's better than Ruby, and not much better than
Perl-done-with-style[1], but only Perl can rival the number of
packages in other languages and applications that Python can, and even
Perl doesn't interface with numerical applications the way Python
does.  To see what I mean, check out the demos at Bokeh:
http://bokeh.pydata.org/en/latest/docs/gallery.html
The demos don't actually have serious NumPy apps behind them (at least
not in most cases), but they easily *could*.  That plus web frameworks
that are in the neighborhood of "as good as Rails" is why Python
programming and the people who do it have an edge in the market, I
think.

 > It would be interesting if such a study was done in Japan.  i.e., like
 > the table in the Appendix  Has anyone heard of one?

No, but I have to apply for a grant in the fall since my current one
runs out.  Sounds like fun!

Steve

Footnotes: 
[1]  Yes, that's a reference to Toy Story.