Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!allyn From: allyn@sdcsvax.UUCP (Allyn Fratkin) Newsgroups: net.college Subject: Re: Where have all the hackers gone? Message-ID: <521@sdcsvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 9-Dec-84 13:10:37 EST Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.521 Posted: Sun Dec 9 13:10:37 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 06:38:01 EST References: <3138@utah-cs.UUCP> Organization: U.C. San Diego Lines: 39 In article <3138@utah-cs.UUCP>, Steve Davidson writes: > > ... "weed out" courses designed to make > computer science as unpleasant as possible. This ensures that only the > fittest students will survive, the rest being exiled to other majors or > other schools. There is only one disturbing fact: The fittest students > aren't neccessarily the best programmers. > > Computer science departments around the country are systematically screening > out the hackers. The department I belong has very few undergraduate hacker > types. They are being replaced by normal looking, normal acting people who > only want to make money. They do their assignments on time, and seldom write > anything that they aren't either getting credit for, or being paid for. It's > sickening. I'm an undergraduate at UC San Diego, and I have seen this exile here also. The "fittest students" are the ones with the best grades, not the ones that are the best programmers. In fact, there is not really a class in how to be a good programmer. Sure, we have a data structures course. So what? When I took it, anyone that got the correct output on a prgram got full credit. It didn't matter if you did extra work handling special cases or did the bare minimum to get by. It didn't matter what your programs looked like. I'm afraid this is the problem at a fair number of schools. We don't have it as bad as some schools. All students (undergrads and grads) can get computer 'literacy' accounts on Unix or VMS. These are limited accounts, but are enough to get some real work done (no hacking, though). We have full access to UUCP and USENET also. Our computer center has 8 vaxen, 3 running Unix, and two Pyramids. I don't think CS departments are purposely screening out hackers. I think it's just happening due to convenience. And resource scarcity. And there's very little we can do about it. -- From the virtual mind of Allyn Fratkin sdcsvax!allyn@Nosc UCSD Pascal Project {ucbvax, decvax, ihnp4} U.C. San Diego !sdcsvax!allyn "Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance."