Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site harvard.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!marie From: marie@harvard.ARPA (Marie desJardins) Newsgroups: net.college Subject: Re: Computer Science in high school Message-ID: <254@harvard.ARPA> Date: Mon, 7-Jan-85 12:47:26 EST Article-I.D.: harvard.254 Posted: Mon Jan 7 12:47:26 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 05:13:10 EST References: <241@mss.UUCP> <14700006@uiucdcsb.UUCP> <753@gloria.UUCP> Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard Lines: 20 > > I once had a store clerk who was going to ADD the dimensions of a > > mirror to compute the square footage. Is this guy going to be help by > > a computer? Only if it makes him realise the beauty and import of math, > > science, literature, philosophy, history and the like. These are the > > essentials of life, without which no man can claim to be wise. > > This is a shallow view of education. Do computer programmers care about > the "beauty and import[ance] of math, science, literature ..."? Not more > than other people. Computer programming is a _basic_ skill -- it does > not require a knowledge of calculus, or number bases, or even the multi- > plication table... Yeah, but if this store clerk writes a simple program to calculate the area of a rectangle by adding the lengths of the sides together, he hasn't accomplished much, even if he can get the program to work. In other words, what *useful* computer programming requires is a grasp of what approach to take to solve a problem. Marie desJardins marie@harvard