[Edu-sig] Low Enrollments - programming as anit-intellectualism.

[Chuck Allison]

Hello Arthur,

Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 7:42:54 AM, you wrote:

A> A business trip had me passing through New Haven.  As a lover of books, and
A> therefore bookstores, I took the opportunity to stop to look for a bookstore
A> near the Yale campus - figuring I would find a bookstore with significantly
A> more depth than those to which I normally have access.

A> I was right.

A> I will make this short.  

A> Without a question (IMO) - the least interesting section of the bookstore
A> was the Computer area.  Hundreds of how-tos on the commercial technologies
A> currently hot. The end.

A> Nothing worth talking about that precedes the current hot technologies - one
A> would conclude from the book selection. 

A> Why would anyone spend $40,000 a year to study how-tos of technologies that
A> will be obsolete by the time they are 30 - if not before.  

A> Its not even in the running as something worth considering.

A> I am no more an intellectual than I am a comedian. But give me a good
A> stand-up, or a facile, learned mind to try to follow and digest.

A> Programming as an academic subject area is *way*, *way* off track  - to the
A> extent my little browse of yesterday was indicative of anything - which I do
A> believe it was.  

Don't judge all of academia by a bookstore (especially a non-campus
one). We don't chase faddish technology at UVSC, although we don't
ignore what's in use either. This is a multi-faceted topic, not so
easily dismissed with an anecdote or two.

-- 
Best regards,
 Chuck