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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 2/20/22 14:57, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 2/20/2022 12:17 AM, 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.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> The software world is quite diverse when it comes to problem
> domains, development methodologies, programming languages,
> libraries and tools.
> 
> It is not realistic for an education to cover what is
> going to be used.
> 
> Furthermore people will be working 40-45 years after
> getting their degree.
> 
> Even if what they learn is actually used in their
> first job, then it it unlikely to be used in their
> last jobs.

Depends very much on the job.  I started in COBOL in 1980.
Eventually moved on into many other facets of the IT world
mostly at the system level as opposed to the application
level.  In 2012 I took a job as a, you guessed it, a COBOL
programmer.  I was able to hit the ground running because
other than some much nicer flow control (EVALUATE instead
of 50 level deep IF-THE-ELSE) nothing had really changed.
The job had remained the same, why should the language
morph into something else (although attempts to do just
that had been tried by academia and soundly rejected by
the real world practitioners.)

> 
> They key is to learn to think the right way.
> 
> And I think it sort of get proved by the fact that
> people with non-IT degrees like math, physics, chemistry,
> astronomy etc. tend to get just as good software
> developers as those with an IT degree in computer science
> or software engineering.

Nice thought, but my experience has somewhat differed.  I have
had to maintain and modify business programs written in Fortran
by engineers.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that one needs a degree to
do any of this.  I did most of what I did for over 30 years
without a degree.  And, at no point did the degree have any
real effect on my ability to do the job.  For me, the degree
was like the documentation.  Not done until the project has
ended. :-)  But it took a lot of learning.  I am lucky in
that I have always had excellent learning skills.  I learned
Pascal from the Jensen & Wirth book in one week of vacation
reading in order to further my position as a Systems Analyst/
Programmer in the Army.  Many people need a more structured
learning environment and that should be provided by the
schools they attend.  But the schools should also teach what
the student is likely to need in the future (which, again,
depends on the student actually picking the right track for
their future).

> 
> So priorities:
> 1) Learn to think the right way
> 2) Learn the general stuff that keeps being relevant
>     about data structures, algorithms etc.  "the Knuth stuff"
> ...
> 99) Learn some specific technologies needed by the industry last year.

More importantly, unless your degree is in something like Philosophy
or Humanities, learn something you will need today in order to succeed
at what yo plan to do with that degree.  Otherwise, might just as well
skip the whole college thing and save the massive debt.  :-)

> 
> What programming languages to learn is less important.

If your going to have to learn a programming language at all
it should be one that actually applies to where you are planning
on going after college.  My department changed from Pascal to
Ada as the introductory language (this was before the advent
of C in the typical CS environment).  For some it was their base
language for all four years at the University.  I received dozens
of emails from former students bitching about how they had been
forced to learn and use a language that had no value whatsoever
when they got out in the real world.

> 
> I will recommend at least 3 to get a broad perspective.
> 
> And they should of course be a bit different to achieve that goal, so:
> - both static and dynamic types
> - include procedural, object oriented, generic and functional
>    programming
> 

I agree with that.  But make sure they are not three that are
totally tied to the same paradigm and only the reserved words
change.  And don't tie the students to the language du jour
which is likely to change when they graduate or very shortly
thereafter.

> Popular languages in education has changed over time.
> 
> Something like:
> 
> Pascal -> C -> C++ and Delphi -> Python, Java and C#
           ^
           |
You forgot Ada.  :-)

> 
> I don't think there is many aspects of Cobol that makes it
> relevant in education.

The fact that it is different from the other paradigms and still
used extensively in the IT world make it very relevant.

> 
> Maybe for something including ISAM files.

Should be included, but there is much more to COBOL today.  By the
way, IBM zOS is still very much into VSAM.  Maybe that touch of
ISAM would help.  :-)

bill