Re: Is MCSD worth doing?

From: UAError (null_at_null.null)
Date: 01/22/05 

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:43:41 -0500

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:39:56 +0000, you wrote:

>As with all your posts, this is excellent stuff. I do hope people take
>the trouble to look at the link.
>
>One point I'd make is on the 'Learn C before graduating.' section.

That section also made me cringe a bit. I can see where he
is coming from, he is looking at employability. However a
good C developer usually has to be a highly disciplined
developer - something you usually don't pick up in the
torrent of higher education. And I don't see anybody who is
learning C now going back to

C Traps and Pitfalls
by Andrew Koenig
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201179288
http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0201179288

and

Expert C Programming
by Peter van der Linden
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0131774298
http://63.240.93.147/title/0131774298

to pick up the lessons of the past and the subtleties that
usually take years of work to learn yourself. By the time
your ready to use

C Interfaces and Implementations : Techniques for Creating
Reusable Software (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing
Series) by David R. Hanson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201498413
http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0201498413

you are really wishing that you could use C++/STL.

> I'd say it's best to learn and understand an (any) object oriented
>language (actually the whole approach).

Agreed, but you are always going to get a contingent of
students that had improper, inadequate or no exposure to
programming - and you don't want to hit them over with OO
and programming simultaneously in the first semester. I
suspect thats one of the reasons MIT uses Scheme during the
first year. And C is definitely NOT a first language despite
its lack of OO. Now the second langauge in the curriculum
should be OO.

>Not that I've anything against
>C, it's just that procedural programming languages are [almost] a
>thing of the past. All systems deal with concepts (classes, types etc)
>so for implementing a software based solution, the OO approach is the
>road to take. Why people [still] think OO is real hard and difficult
>to understand is beyond me.
>

As the guys from http://www.nakedobjects.org state:

"It's official: object-orientation has won. The argument is
over; it's time to celebrate and move on.

We beg to differ."
http://www.nakedobjects.org/book/section4.html

>
>Also missing was the omission that after graduation it is important to
>gain understanding of the business sector you work it (the 'Learn
>microeconomics' section (and licks) does not really cover this).
>Software solves business problems, so how can you solve a problem if
>you don't understand what the problem is?
>

On an even more general level an understanding of Business
Process and Business Process Management is required.

>
>I've never read the 'Scott W. Ambler' book you mentioned, but the
>quote you stated sums it up!
>

That quote is the conclusion of a number of paragraphs where
he laments the fact that it is common practice in the
industry to turn developers into project managers at just
about the time where they are becoming competent in their
craft and they realize that technology isn't everthing - so
developing is left to the "Young Punks".

>
>>Nah, calculators lost their lustre after "Numerical
>>Analysis". And I can never find my HP15C when I need one.
>>That was also when I found out that mathematicians are not
>>automatically good programmers, even in FORTRAN.
>>
>>Seems Joel Spolsky has an opinion on CS education:
>>
>>Advice for Computer Science College Students
>>By Joel Spolsky
>>Sunday, January 02, 2005
>>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CollegeAdvice.html
>>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/printerFriendly/articles/CollegeAdvice.html
>>
>>for what its worth...
>>
>>
>>'The end result is that the majority of people actively
>>developing software are typically not the ones best qualified
>>to do it, and they don't even know it.'
>>Scott W. Ambler, 'Agile Modeling', p.5
>
>
>Kline Sphere (Chalk) MCNGP #3

'The real crux of the "software crisis" is that software IS hard.'
Robert C. Martin,
'Designing Object-Oriented C++ Applications Using the Booch Method', p. ix

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