[Coco] dumb profs wasRe: trig.h

[Steven Hirsch]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2011, Aaron Wolfe wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 7:07 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Jan 2011, Willard Goosey wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 06:34:42PM -0500, Steven Hirsch wrote:
>>>
>>>> University of Vermont (my alma-mater) dropped Assembly Language and
>>>> Machine Organization as a required course in the CS curriculum.  Just
>>>> incredible.
>>>
>>> Yeah, that's pretty mind-blowing.  It's all object-this and abstract
>>> that.  But eventually, at the bottom of all those layers of code, the
>>> machine is still "load a register."  "add 1."  "store register."
>>
>> As I said, it has begotten 50MB binaries that require 1GB of memory to run
>> and execute like a snail even at that.  Before being turned loose on the
>> world to code The Next Big App, all new CS grads should be exposed to
>> something like, e.g. WordStar running on a 48k Z80 machine and asked to
>> think about it for a moment.
>>
>> Steve
>
> I've said before and still believe that a study of OS9 or even FLEX or
> CPM, some OS designed for the 8 bit machines would be eye opening and
> very beneficial to new CS students.  You can fit these systems in your
> head, something basically impossible with modern operating systems.
> Without ever understanding any computer system from the bottom up, I
> don't think a new programmer has a foundation for making good choices
> at the upper layers of abstraction where we play today.

You are preaching to the choir :-).  Back before the Math dept. staged a 
hostile takeover of UVM's CS program (don't even get me started on 
that..), it was joined closely with EE.  Both majors originally took a lab 
using little single-board systems (68k, 8080, etc.)  That was late 80s - 
early 90s. Then it moved to assembler on PC under DOS.  Still better than 
nothing.  Finally, it was ordained that CS grads should be trained as 
beings of pure intellect who never deign to soil their hands with 
practical matters of any sort.  Whatever little bit of hands-on that 
remained became the responsibility of graduate students with questionable 
skill levels.

And we wonder why we're losing our competitive advantage in this country.

Steve


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