[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[abrsvc]

On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 12:17:22 AM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 2/19/2022 11:02 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote: 
> > On 2/19/22 21:07, Dan Cross wrote:
> Bit of a trim of the old stuff needed ... 
> 
> To me, a university is there to teach a person how to think and learn. 
> 
> When my son started school, he asked "what type of job should I learn to do?". 
> My reply was "You aren't going to learn a job. You're going there to learn how 
> to learn, and think, and to learn about the world that you haven't seen yet." 
> 
> As to teaching Cobol, learning computer languages should be a part of 
> university, if the student chooses. I had a semester of Cobol when I was in 
> school, maybe 50 some years ago. 
> 
> What I would not agree with is misinformation. If a professor is misleading 
> students based upon his/her own bias about how the world should be run, well, 
> that's dishonest, and it should be "former professor". 
> 
> As for skills, to me is seems it always comes down to OJT. No school is going 
> to teach exactly what a particular employer needs. Some basics, and how to 
> learn, yes. Details, no. 
> 
> As an example, I was taught about linked lists. I wasn't taught about what I 
> needed them for, that came later on the job. The school taught the concept, the 
> job taught the need and design.
> -- 
> David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450 
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da... at tsoft-inc.com 
> DFE Ultralights, Inc. 
> 170 Grimplin Road 
> Vanderbilt, PA 15486

David,  

David,

An refreshing perspective that I share and rarely see.  I got in "trouble" with the established professors when I was teaching at the college level years ago.  I taught both FORTRAN and assembly language (Macro32 at the time) and my exams were not the usual "write a code segment to do this" type of test.  My thoughts at the time were that nowhere in industry would you be given a directive like that.  You would be given a task and the reference material available to assist in accomplishing that task.  I concentrated more on how to resolve a problem by breaking it down into logical steps.  In other words, how to think.  In this fashion, the language syntax specifics were more details on how to make it happen rather than problem solving.  I had many students return to tell me that their current employment used a different language but that they had no problems adapting to that language because syntax was easy to reference and use.  The thought process was more important.

While I believe that languages such as Cobol should be offered and available, concentrating on how to solve a problem and exposing students to MANY language syntax variants is valuable too.  Perhaps a course in language similarities and differences would be a good one.  Show examples of the advantages of each language and the disadvantages too.  Lets face it, some languages are not appropriate for some tasks. 

Dan