Collaboration WAS: E-mail Privacy

[mike.stefanik]

In an article, tjc at ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown) writes:
>But a degree is awarded on the basis of *your* skills at design/coding
>and on *your* ability to interact in a group project, not somebody else's!
>A good CS degree has management/teamwork skills built in (ours does,
>quick plug ;-), but should still demand individual performance.

Hardly.  A degree is awarded on the basis of yours skills at taking tests,
and conforming to the norm.  If the goals of universities in the U.S. are
to produce thinking, well-rounded human beings, they are failing miserably.
Regardless of their objective, they *are* producing sponges who equivocate
learning with letting someone else do their thinking for them.  Intentional
or not, the end results of four years of "higher education" is rather
Orwellian, methinks.

By and large, the best programmers I have met have no papers.  Personally,
I got rather disgusted with the entire fiasco years ago.  I walked into a
class, and here was one of the most repected CS professors talking about the
value of goto's in programming languages, and that structured coding was
a passing fad.  It still makes me ill to think about it ...

-- 
Mike Stefanik, MGI Inc., Los Angeles -- Opinions stated are never realistic!
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men." -Lincoln