Comments on: We need tool builders

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 11:49:24 +0000

Hmm. Sounds like my facotry theory is finally setting people straight.

By: Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 11:46:42 +0000

I respectfully disagree…

Much of the tools are now being used to create more tools, thus making it a circular reference. So you’re both wrong.

By: Michael James

Michael James — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 03:52:36 +0000

I find it funny that the Computer Science Teachers Association wants its students to be tool builders, but (speaking for my alma mater, Drexel University) they are at least partially responsible for why students end up being tool users.

Drexel, like most schools I’m guessing (MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Stanford not included), teach the theory of computer science and not that much application, apart from learning a programming language. This results in students graduating from college not having written anything close to real software.

When they get a job, they find out that they won’t be using all that theory they learned and it’s more important to have “x years of experience” in a specific software tool. Both of these things lead to students learning tools instead of creating them.

By: Luis de la Rosa

Luis de la Rosa — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 11:14:26 +0000

We definitely want the next generation to do everything better. The point is that there are less and less people going into software because of the perception that because of the Dot Com bubble bursting, that there are suddenly no software jobs anymore. That’s no more true than the assertion that there are no more Dot Coms. And businesses are realizing more of what software can truly give them. So there is a growing need for engineers, but not enough kids studying it now.

I don’t know if we need folks from other disciplines to start learning programming. That might be good, but what we do need in the future is to get closer to the users, the folks from other disciplines, so that we program more with them at the center of the software.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:01:57 +0000

I kind of diagree with this. This sounds like the factory worker who says “my children will be proud to work in the factory.” We should want the next generation to take what we’ve done and do it better. Software doesn’t need more engineers; it needs folks from other disciplines to come in and bring the great ideas with them.