Well we are talking about CS courses. So I hear you reluctantly
agreeing that there this it is appropriately core curricula. The first
2 words of the title of Brad's book is 'Problem Solving' - implying a
"means to an ends". What else?
Not really reluctantly. When learning scuba, it's good to learn about Boyle's law. And why does a bottle of coke fizz when you open it? That's part of an explanation for something too (if you run out of air, rise to the surface slowly, exhaling as you go, and you'll find you keep having enough air -- but god help you if you didn't obey the navy dive tables in the first place).
But is the point of scuba to fill your head with this stuff? Not really. The point is to go down there and admire all the pretty fish, to find nemo if you will. I'm into helping students find their private nemos, whatever that means in special case -- which entails learning algorithms and data structures along the way.
Re 2 words ("problem solving"): I'm not disagreeing with Brad in any way that I know of.
Kay? You admire him. I judge his public persona harshly. He is
paraphrases by an admirer:
""nothing exciting about computing today has to do with data structures
and algorithms"""
I do admire Kay, more for his track record of good inventions in CS (e.g. OO/SmallTalk). That's what entitles him to rub people the wrong way with deliberately provocative statements. If he were just some guy off the street who'd read a few CS books, the effect wouldn't be the same. That being said, if *all* he does is rub people the wrong way, then I'd consider him a has been, a once great star who should now step aside and introduce us to whom he considers most promising going forward. Kay's students deserve my attention, perhaps more than Kay himself.
Kay reminds me of Ted Nelson. Ted is notoriously a contrarian and likes to use the podium to decry, to broadcast his dismay with this or that dominant paradigm in computing (like, don't get him started on spreadsheets).
Personal note: I've never met either Kay or Ted in person, nor even attended a live talk or lecture or presentation by either. I'd like to have that privilege sometime. In the meantime, there's streaming video and journalistic accounts.
I don't think there is *nothing* to that statement. But his way is to
overstate things, not state things. I don't think that is appropriate
for someone claiming to represent the high order of any branch of
science - as he so claims.
Art
A root meaning of 'geek' is circus performer of some kind. Sometimes you need front men and women who rile, provoke, stir things up.
You may sense in my defense of Kay an implicit defense of my own possible role going forward: as someone who deliberately sparks controversy, by saying things repeatable in cocktail parties, with lots of tittering, with others going home offended to bash their pillows late into the night: take THAT you Kirby guy, and THAT, and THAT....
Kirby
_______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
