Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2025 21:52:39 -0300
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 59
Message-ID: <87wmdci4yw.fsf@example.com>
References: <67b21894$14$17$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>
	<87tt8odsb7.fsf@example.com>
	<1b411147-a833-8c73-2d85-e5c749fc23b9@example.net>
	<87ikp03y4r.fsf@example.com> <vplm9g$bh8$1@panix2.panix.com>
	<81cafbfb-18b8-8898-4d91-13ba43f9703c@example.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Injection-Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2025 01:52:39 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="45f237ca80d16a0ba3695b7d815e802a";
	logging-data="2937480"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18yMRb9Es+H8zcOXBQRBuIlr5vl6y4FMqU="
Cancel-Lock: sha1:8/CXciCcmyWs1yhv2HRx86jgfmI=
	sha1:y/D5FzRnp/3VJ4EDXu7e3kJeRb8=
Bytes: 3939

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

> On Tue, 25 Feb 2025, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
>> Salvador Mirzo  <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
>>> I don't have much information.  The command line seemed an awful
>>> experience to them.  I suspect that they thought that the command line
>>> was archaic means of system interface and that perhaps it was just a
>>> teacher idiosyncrasy.
>>
>> This is something I see a lot of... we get interns who are engineering
>> students or computer science students and they have never seen a command
>> line of any sort before.  Not bash, not powershell, not anything.  They
>> first of all don't get the command line concept and secondly they don't
>> get the concept of the heirarchical filesystem.  "The file is on the
>> computer!"  "But where on the computer?"  "It's on the computer!"
>
> Please scott, you are breaking my heart! =(
>
>> We even got a guy with a PhD in CS from a university that I had previously
>> thought reputable who had never used a command line and who just could
>> not understand how make works in spite of the O'Reilly book.
>
> Stop, please, for the love of god!
>
>> I think some of these concepts have to be introduced early on, but they
>> NEED to be introduced early on in order to get any kind of basic computer
>> literacy.
>> --scott
>
> This was a painful read. =( I thought I saw this due to the fact that
> I teach at the vocational school level and not university level. Are
> yo useriously telling me that this b.s. goes one (and comes out of)
> the university level?

I'm afraid it is.

> If so... we'll soon enter a period of decline, if even universities
> turn out CS student so ill equipped to develop new brilliant services
> in todays world. =(

Perhaps the crowd that's brilliant is a minority that hasn't changed
much compared the previous times.  (Perhaps it has.)  Just because a lot
of people are joining university and coming out of them pretty clueless,
it doesn't mean that we've reduced that small group that carries the
rest of the world on their shoulders.  Perhaps this group is still the
same percent compared to the last centuries.  (Just guessing hypotheses
here.)

But I think you're totally right in that we've entered a period where we
have a lot of people who are completely wasting their degrees, specially
in an area such as computer science.  I could be wrong, but it seems
that computer science is housing a lot of nonsense.  I'm sure there are
declines in mathematics and physics too (likely more so on physics than
in mathematics, I'd guess), but I believe computer science might be the
worst.  When I look at the student body in computer science, the vast
majority seems totally uninterested in computer science---they're
interested in /playing/ video-games, not producing them.