Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!iuvax!pur-ee!a.cs.uiuc.edu!p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: CS with Laboratories
Message-ID: <82400008@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 5 Jul 88 05:32:00 GMT
References: <1018@ndsuvax.UUCP>
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #R:ndsuvax.UUCP:1018:p.cs.uiuc.edu:82400008:000:1411
Nf-From: p.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Jul  5 00:32:00 1988


I disagree with the base note writer.  Think back a mere 15 years --
how was computer science taught at the major schools?  People
submitted card decks to computer operators and picked up their
printouts 1/2 an hour later.  If you were a grad student at an
exceptional department, you could interact with the front panel of a
PDP-11.  These schools still produced good programmers.

The basics necessary for teaching computer science have never been
cheaper.  Computer hardware DOES NOT obey the economic principals that
cause nightmares for Chemistry and Physics departments.  Even small
schools should have little difficulty affording the equipment to teach
compiler techniques, optimization, operating systems, AI, or numerical
analysis.  However, it may take some curriculum (software) development
by an expert professor and some graduate students.

Advanced (not Beginning) Computer graphics may be the only area where
you'll have problems.  Ideally, every student might need a PIXAR
machine, or at least a Iris workstation.

VLSI and PAL design is another story.  These technologies are
expensive and state-of-the-art equipment is not getting much cheaper.
Maybe we can call this part of the curriculum EE, and dispense with
the problem?  I think ALS7400 TTL technology is still sufficient to
learn the rudimentary basics, much as card-deck programming was close
enough "to the real thing" in the 1970's.