[LINK] Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?

[Alastair Rankine]

Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> <brd>
> As technology based systems become more complex, CS students seem to 
> becoming less widely educated, are focussed on the internet and less 
> able to understand the complexity of modern systems.

Bernard, just out of interest, how did you come upon this view? The 
three criticisms you mention are quite subjective and difficult to quantify.

If you are observing this as a trend for applications to your 
organisation, perhaps this can be explained as a sampling bias? In other 
words the more widely educated, perhaps more capable students are 
applying to positions elsewhere? (I'm not attempting to denigrate your 
organisation, just observing that Google, for example, is a pretty tough 
competitor for talented CS graduates these days...)

> And I bet very few of them can even spell OLTP, let alone know what it 
> means - and I am not referring to what the letters stand for.

Another possible sampling bias. I'm sure OLTP is important in your 
occupation but can I just say that it has absolutely no relevance in my 
current position. In fact I've managed to completely avoid CICS and 
similar technologies for my entire career - but let me assure you that 
my educational background is by no means focused on the internet, nor on 
any other specific vocational area.

However I'm sympathetic to your underlying point: with minimal 
discussion I'm sure we could agree on a few indispensable technologies 
and skills that the CS Youth Of Today don't have a clue about.

> And just think, Bill Gates was raised on BASIC, and look at what he 
> has left the world.
I doubt this very much (assembler was almost certainly Bill's first 
language of choice) but in any case what relevance does this fact have 
to CS students of today? Do you think we could produce more Bill Gates' 
if we structured our CS courses differently? (Do we even want to do this?)

> <brd>
>
> Computer Science Education:
> Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow?
> Crosstalk, the Journal of Defense Software Engineering
> http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html
> Dr. Robert B.K. Dewar,  AdaCore Inc.
> Dr. Edmond Schonberg,  AdaCore Inc.

OK I'll admit upfront I didn't quite make it to the end of this paper. I 
gave up at the sentence "Ada is the language of software engineering par 
excellence." THE language? Really?

Frankly the paper makes some good points but many of them are irrelevant 
to the stated "trends" for which no real evidence is supplied. They seem 
to be partially relying on the fact that they can't seem to recruit 
Ada-literate developers anymore.

The authors also succumb to the trendy practice of Java-bashing, but 
this time attacking it for its rich standard library, of all things.

Lastly, the authors, who are admittedly "founders of a company that 
specializes in Ada programming tools", miss no opportunity to promote 
Ada as a teaching language. As such, this paper comes across as a 
marketing document, and a pretty unconvincing one at that.