

Why Computer Science Doesn't Matter - swannodette
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/fk-why-cs-doesnt-matter/paper.pdf

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SkyMarshal
Clever title, simultaneously inflamatory linkbait, or accurate, depending on
how you read it. The verbal version of the duck/rabbit or old/young woman
drawings.

The accurate version: _Computer Science Doesn't Matter to Most Students, but
Should and Could, and Here's Why and How_

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aidenn0
Unless the AP CS test has changed significantly since I took it, it was a
worthless test. No college I applied to accepted it for credit or placement,
which is the whole point of AP tests.

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Jach
tl;dr: Teach programming with DrScheme with the application being simple
math/physics homework most students would just use a calculator for, but can
now sort of explore the contrived problems with images instead of pure
numbers, and don't try to teach CS.

The early stats on AP test takers are misleading. It accounts for the Calculus
AB + Calculus BC. Taking just the BC number, whose difficulty is probably
closer to that of the AP CS A test (the B got wiped out 'cause hardly anyone
took it), there were only 78,998 takers in 2010. While still a lot more than
the CS test, it's not grossly larger by an order of magnitude as initially
suggested. (Edit: I say the BC test is probably closer in difficulty based on
my own experience. I took the CS B test when it was around and only got a 3,
but got a 5 on the Calc BC test.)

~~~
camperman
A less cynical tl;dr might be: students of all ages can discover that algebra
can be a form of "moving math" that can be used to program their own video
games. Once they grasp this, they tend to find out lots of stuff on their own
- for fun. This gives them a vast leg up when it comes to college.

I've used DrScheme to teach the poorest of poor kids this stuff and it works
stupendously.

~~~
Jach
Of course. I'll agree anything that gets kids to self-teach is good, as that's
the real problem of education (in other words, no desire to learn for any
reason), and this approach apparently has experimental backing from you and
the paper. I just don't think this should replace standard CS, but rather be
something separate; call it something like Elementary Programming, and
probably encourage it more than standard CS.

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NY_Entrepreneur
'Math' has long had its own field. It is by a wide margin the oldest, deepest,
most solid, most general subject in academics, a real crown jewel of
civilization.

'Computer science' didn't want to be just part of math and wanted their own
field. They got it.

Now they are stucko: Students take the computer science (CS) courses mostly
just to learn programming mostly just to get jobs. There are problems here
since the exact list of buzz words and acronyms the employers want keeps
changing. For the 'science' part, they've had a tough time finding much that
is significant. As they look for significance, and solid tools and techniques,
they start to return to math but there come in poorly prepared and behind and
make a mess.

So, research computer science has wanted to hijack math, and now in the
article high school computer science wants to hijack math.

CS: Make it on your own. You've long had some of the best funding in
academics, and the most students. So, go for it. And, quit trying to hijack
math.

~~~
baddox
Do you have a source that supports you claim that CS has some of the best
funding in academics and the most students? That doesn't seem likely to me.

As for the academic relationship between math and computer science, I don't
see it as any different than the relationship between math and physics.
Physics and computer science students both have to take lots of math courses,
but I wouldn't consider either to be a subset or focus within mathematics.

All formal mathematics is founded on logic and discrete mathematics, and you
could easily argue that logic and discrete mathematics are the realm of
computer science. You could just as easily argue that mathematics is founded
on computer science as you could argue the inverse.

~~~
NY_Entrepreneur
"Do you have a source that supports you claim that CS has some of the best
funding in academics and the most students? That doesn't seem likely to me."

When I was a Big Ten prof, looked that way to me. From MIT, about all I hear
about is the CS. Then some AI. Then some control theory. Then some
optimization. For the math, is the department still there?

When I was in grad school, the CS and EE departments were big deals, with lots
of students and profs, and the math department hardly had the lights on.

For students, the CS departments get lots that just want to learn programming
to get jobs; the math departments nearly never get any such students.

Physics tries to do math, but how badly they do it, and how they insist that
students work effectively with physics with really bad math, is a solid part
of the 'culture'. E.g., there is the Feynman statement about a particle
uniformly distributed everywhere; sorry, Dick, no such can exist! There is
also the joke, not far wrong, that in an appropriate math book, can do all the
physics just in the footnotes. Net, nearly all the challenge of mathematical
or theoretical physics is in the math, just the math. For such math, the math
departments are way ahead; they hold all the big cards but refuse to play
them!

Your statement about logic and discrete math meaning that math should be part
of computer science is like saying that painting in fine arts should be part
of chemistry. Yes, math can be regarded as the 'logic' of just pushing symbols
around, and maybe eventually more of such research will be automated via
computers, but so far the symbol pushing doesn't have the real work. Or the
joke is, the difference between algebra and analysis is that algebra is just
pushing symbols around and analysis has some real ideas behind it. It's the
ideas that are important.

