>>> I think this is a side effect of teaching programming as a career skill. You have people that want to be programmers but don't include "computing" as one of their hobbies.
It may be the result of the competitiveness of the education system. Everything is more competitive. As I understand things, CS is the hottest undergraduate major right now. You can't just sign up because you learned to program in high school and think it's cool. You have to be a top student just to get admitted. So it may be that the kids who want to be computer scientists just aren't able to have hobbies at all, or their hobbies are chosen to look good on their college applications.
One of the things I've noticed between then and now, is that when I was in high school, I learned programming because I had a lot of spare time to kill. My kids have no spare time.
>>> Teaching these skills in CS curriculum would probably be a good idea.
Granted, I didn't study CS, but instead math & physics, decades ago. But I think that some things don't belong in a college curriculum, especially given the price tag. I didn't take college courses to learn soldering, or even programming.
But also, not all CS majors are destined to become hackers, and there has to be room for a student who might be all thumbs but really has a deep interest in the subject matter of the field. In physics, we called them "theoreticians."
A deeper question is why someone is studying theoretical computer science for 4 years in order to become a coder. Programming is getting harder, but that much harder? When my mom taught programming in the early 80s, her students were getting jobs after one year of coursework.
> It may be the result of the competitiveness of the education system. Everything is more competitive. As I understand things, CS is the hottest undergraduate major right now.
Hardly. Looking at the Swedish admissions statistics[1] from this year (because that's what I'm familiar with):
- Of the top 5 programmes, 3 were for physicians (doctors), with the required GPA ranging 22.09-22.29
- The hardest engineering programme to get into was no. 8, technical physics, requiring 21.98
- The hardest computer-related programme to get into was no. 56, software engineering, requiring 20.73
That said, it was above 20.0 (straight As), so the requirements do seem to have increased in the last few years
[1]: https://statistik.uhr.se/uhr.html, to see applications to programmes based on high school GPAs you'll want to pick "Bara program", "Urval 1", and then set "Visa urvalsgrupp" to "BI". You'll want to sort by "Antagningspoäng".
It may be the result of the competitiveness of the education system. Everything is more competitive. As I understand things, CS is the hottest undergraduate major right now. You can't just sign up because you learned to program in high school and think it's cool. You have to be a top student just to get admitted. So it may be that the kids who want to be computer scientists just aren't able to have hobbies at all, or their hobbies are chosen to look good on their college applications.
One of the things I've noticed between then and now, is that when I was in high school, I learned programming because I had a lot of spare time to kill. My kids have no spare time.
>>> Teaching these skills in CS curriculum would probably be a good idea.
Granted, I didn't study CS, but instead math & physics, decades ago. But I think that some things don't belong in a college curriculum, especially given the price tag. I didn't take college courses to learn soldering, or even programming.
But also, not all CS majors are destined to become hackers, and there has to be room for a student who might be all thumbs but really has a deep interest in the subject matter of the field. In physics, we called them "theoreticians."
A deeper question is why someone is studying theoretical computer science for 4 years in order to become a coder. Programming is getting harder, but that much harder? When my mom taught programming in the early 80s, her students were getting jobs after one year of coursework.