[xquery-talk] XML/XQuery academic conferences ?

[Markus Pilman]

Hello David,

> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good> software.
Funny that this topic arises: I had a discussion with a PhD student
today and we both somehow agreed, that the quality of code decreases
the higher the education gets (I had to debug MySQL - there are
functions with more than 1500 lines of code, functions in custom
storage engines need to set error values in some global variables and
need to return the same error value because the code in the optimizer
uses one error code and the processor the other but if they are not
equal the behavior of the queries is undefined etc). And most of this
code probably got written by PhDs.
And if you look in general into software that was written in
academia... No comment needed here I think. (To all people who want to
kill me now for that statement: I am planning to do a PhD - but for
other reasons than to improve my coding skills - this would be easier
in industry)
> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
> education.
Maybe. Were these great developers able to do great products without
relying on the work of Dijkstra, Turing, Wirth, Hoare etc? I highly
doubt that. Without academics there wouldn't be computer science. To
do work in some fields you need a strong background - if you are a
smart person you can learn it by your own, but Universities usually
help. It is like Physics (or any other discipling): Einstein would
probably have been able to be a great physicist without ever visiting
ETH - but may be it would took him more time (also it would have been
much harder to make the world listen to him - or would you read and
proof a paper about a proof of P=NP by someone who does not have any
education?).

Just my 2 cents and sorry for continuing the off topic discussion.

Markus

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 9:54 PM, David Lee <dlee at calldei.com> wrote:
>
> ---- David
>> ... which is probably why I dont look to PhD's when I'm looking for
>> a good
>> software person.
> ---- Daniela
> Well, that's a surprising view for me.
>
> ( I don't REQUIRE a Phd when I look for a good developer, but nor do I
> disqualify people
> because they have one. I am taking my good developers wherever I find
> them. )
>
> --------------------------------------------
> -- David
> I never said I disqualify people for having a PhD but out of the hundreds of
> software developers I've interviewed and dozens I've been responsible for
> hiring, not a single one would I say having a PhD in any way was a
> significant positive contribution to their qualifications or rationale for
> hiring them.
>
> In many (but not all) cases I found a direct disconnect between PhD style
> education in computer science and between being able to actually write good
> software.
>
> -------------------
>
> -- Daniela
> If they weren't any software academics,  there would be no software
> professors,
> and if there are no software professors, there will be no  software
> students. If there are no students,
> there is no critical mass.
>
> Etc. Etc. Etc. The vicious circle.
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> --- David
> Disagree
> Some of the greatest software developers in the world have had no formal
> education.
> Many more have had formal education in non-software fields.
> I'm not opposed to Academia, but I do not agree its necessarily the best way
> to produce good Software developers, and by no means the only way.
> Improving it would be nice though.    I would LOVE it if having a PhD in
> Computer Science actually meant you could write good quality software.   But
> in my experience it does not.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> David A. Lee
> dlee at calldei.com
> http://www.xmlsh.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
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