Should a computer science degree require learning C ?

When I learned C in college I wondered many times if I was really going to need that skill later in life. I felt the same way when I was taught assembly, fortran, cobol and pascal.

By the end of senior year, I had much more fun & interest building things with HyperCard and SuperCard than anything else.

In recent years, I’ve heard more and more people suggest that learning C should not be a requirement to get a CS degree. I know people my age or older may shudder at that thought.

With this in mind, I really liked reading “Ping - Technolnology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds” in yesterdays NYT. It addresses the bigger question about the natural evolution of technology and how it impacts learning and growing.

Read the whole story but I’ll leave you with the last line of the article which I agreed with:

“The pessimistic assumption that new technologies will somehow make our lives worse may be a function of occupation or training. Paul Saffo, the futurist, says he could divide the technology world into two kinds of people: engineers and natural scientists. He says the world outlook of the engineer is by nature optimistic. Every problem can be solved if you have the right tools and enough time and you pose the correct questions. Other people, who can be just as scientific, see the natural order of the world in terms of entropy, decline and death.”

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