Thoughts from a younger generation.. [LWN.net]

Thoughts from a younger generation..

Posted May 19, 2026 9:28 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Thoughts from a younger generation.. by autious
Parent article: RIP Peter G. Neumann

I went through university over 2 decades ago, and remember people complaining that we were learning parsing theory, graph theory, formal methods, boolean logic and other such things, when we should have been learning how to write Java applets for the web, because that was clearly the future of work. Quite a few of the loudest complainers didn't make it to their second year of undergraduate in CS, because it wasn't what they were interested in; and of the remainder, none are still in the "high paid" jobs they wanted to get via a CS degree, but have gone into lower paid roles connected to the field (e.g. project management of software projects, marketing/sales for tech firms etc).

I suspect that the same is true today - you've got the people who are interested in CS for CS's sake, and a much larger group who just want a comfortable high-paid job - and the hard question is whether the first group is growing or shrinking over time (since it's covered by the noise created by the larger group who just want a job out of it).

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If you only want to work, why live?

Posted May 19, 2026 11:27 UTC (Tue) by jpeisach (subscriber, #181966) [Link] (1 responses)

If the goal of a CS degree is only "just get me a job", then you aren't contributing to the field in any meaningful way. You're just.. applying it. Which, in itself, can be cool, and I think where we see the "noise" of the "larger group of people" is that the applications are indeed, meaningful.

I'm going to begin university in August, but I do go to a school where I had a brief introduction to Complexity Theory, Computational Theory, and I also took an intro to Graph Theory course. I think they *all* help you understand computers better. It's honestly kind of magical, seeing how these concepts create what we use today.

If you only want to work, why live?

Posted May 19, 2026 12:35 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

It's similar to how construction workers aren't contributing to the fields of architecture or structural engineering in any meaningful way (beyond causing actual buildings to actually exist, but only ones that other people had already determined were structurally sound and possible to build). And, of course, they're contributing to humanity, which needs these buildings, and they're making the study of architecture and structural engineering useful for a practical purpose.

Similarly, just being able to write software competently allows you to contribute to the world benefiting from the use of computers, but it's not really the purpose of a CS degree. About 25 years ago, my CS department started teaching a programming class for non-majors, because, these days, biologists are going to write programs to apply their knowledge of biology, and you'd like them to write those programs well, and the CS department figures out what "writing programs well" means.

Thoughts from a younger generation..

Posted May 19, 2026 12:56 UTC (Tue) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link]

> I suspect that the same is true today - you've got the people who are interested in CS for CS's sake, and a much larger group who just want a comfortable high-paid job - and the hard question is whether the first group is growing or shrinking over time (since it's covered by the noise created by the larger group who just want a job out of it).

I like how the German tertiary education system solves it (or used to solve it, nowadays the demarcation is very fuzzy): Universities focus on producing new scientists and Fachhochschulen (better translated as "university of applied sciences" rather than "vocational colleges") produce workers, but with an above-industry-average knowledge of theoretical subjects.

Those who like CS for the sake of it can study at a University (and maybe get a career as researchers or professors). Those who want an high-paid job are better suited by a Fachhochschule (where the teachers are hi-profile practitioners from the industry and will help them land a good job).