Computational Diversity, Practice and a Passion for Applications.
Dave Thomas · The Journal of Object Technology · 2003
During the past few years I've had the privilege to speak on an industrial perspective on academic education.It has been most encouraging to meet numerous academics who are concerned with effective teaching of applied computer science, software engineering, and information technology.In particular I applaud the work of Joseph Bergin and Jutta Eckstein, Pedagogical Patterns Project [1], and those who each year organize the OOPSLA, ECOOP, CSE, PLOP and Agile/XP Educator workshops.Similar groups exist in other communities outside OO, in SIGSOFT, ICFP, etc.I was surprised that many educators commented that my views were too academic and out of line with real industry.However, several educators resonated with one or more of my remarks.What saddened me is that these educators expressed great dismay that they too were being forced to conform to a false perception of what real industry needs!This column is dedicated to those who believe that programming and computation is an intellectually significant and challenging career that demands a wide spectrum education combined with practice.I want to acknowledge numerous discussions with many colleagues from the OO community as well as the influence of Dick Gabriel's thought provoking Feyerabend Project [2] and his Master of Fine Arts in Software [3].Finally the arguments of Peter Denning on IT education [4] seem to parallel our concern for development of competency through practice.I believe the concerns addressed by this column, although my own opinion; do merit serious consideration and broader discussion in our community.