PHP and Computing Academics

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EvanClark
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PHP and Computing Academics

Post by EvanClark »

Hey Guys ...

I'm working on my Thesis this year at what is considered to be one of Australias top Universities. I'm working on an advanced Preference Merging algorithm using PHP/MySQL.

I received an email yesterday stating that the University is possibly outsourcing my Thesis's assessment, since no one in the entire Computer Science faculty has "adequate knowledge of the technology used".

It seems as though most modern day academics are stuck in the days of COBOL, Fortran, C and at best Java.

Is it just my University, or is PHP many years off being accepted into respected educational institutions :?:
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nielsene
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Post by nielsene »

I'm doing my Master's thesis using PHP, but then again my school doesn't paticularly care about our choice of implementation language. Mentors/ advisors can advise on the underlying algorithms which are cross languange, we're on our own if if pick a language they aren't familiar with. (And the languanges they use tend to esoteric :) )
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enygma
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Post by enygma »

Most schools are horribly behind on trends in technology.
Part of the problem here is that there's only so much time that they have to do things in. If they want to make a new class for soemthing, they have to "okay" the course material through the school - and that just takes time (somtimes more than a year).

So, while schools are woefully behind on their material, the students are forced to learn on their own (like most programmers do) while they're taught the fundamentals of programming through C++ or Pascal (yes, I took Pascal in college).

I think that in order for a university to really have a class that speaks to the trends they see in the tech industry, they need to get back to basics - teach the ideas behind code structure and how a site should work - not how to use Dreamweaver or something. If the student comes out and doesn't know anything about how the "internet business" works, but they know the tools, they're not going to get very far. They have to have examples that show that they understand websites, and know how to make one that's both useful and a high enough level of tech to it so that the person hiring them knows that they know what they're doing (no basica HTML sites will cut it these days).
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mikeq
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Post by mikeq »

I still use Pascal (well Object Pascal) which is the language used by Delphi. I found PHP very easy to pick up as they are similar.
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llimllib
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Post by llimllib »

<rant alt="skip to bottom if you want on-topic discussion">

I think the idea behind the college comp sci education is not to give you the acronyms you'll need to get hired, but to give you the ability to solve problems using the correct tool. This is where I find our educational system lacking - *they don't teach you to use languages and skills as tools*. They'll teach you to use tools, but never make you try and choose between them - that you have to do for yourself.
Take 5 mins to look around the internet, and see how many questions are "what language should I use for x?" Even very experienced programmers are oftentimes unsure of what language to use, because (IMHO) they have been trained to use tools, but not to evaluate their options and chose the best tool for the job. This is how language bigots are born.

</rant>

As for academics having ancient pet languages, I think they are just used to solving the type of problems they need to solve in their 'native' language. They are (often) interested only in using the language, so why would they spend the time to learn another new language just to make it harder for them to solve the problems they're interested in solving?
I don't think they disrespect new languages without reason, they're just attached to their proven solutions.
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nielsene
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Post by nielsene »

Echoing the recent comments, I feel that computer science departments shouldn't jump on the latest computer languanges (IT degrees, maybe..) You're at school to learn to program and problem-solve, not to learn a languange. Ideally college should teach you how to learn languages. I know mine did. The intro course is taught in Scheme, the S/W engineering course was tuaght in PolyJ (a Java variant), the O/S course uses C, my parallel algorithms course used pH, AI used Scheme. Typically speaking each course used a different language, but spent the majority of time teaching the concepts, not the languange.

The intro class spent about two weeks teaching Scheme, thats it. The rest of the time was learning how to do more and more complex things with a very simple to learn language. For Java they had to intersperse languange constructs throughout a lot of the course, but they expected you to pick it up quickly as you went. As a result new languages don't scare me (well Perl does a little :) ).

I never took some of the different web-technologies courses they offer. I wouldn't be surprised to see them use PHP here because it allows people to quickly focus on the aspects that make web programming unique Likewize I wouldn't be surprised if classes that teach databases use PHP as a glue languange. However PHP's class model does not lend it to being used in s/w engineering courses where OO is taught.

Schools should pick the language that best allows them to teach their concepts.
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twigletmac
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Post by twigletmac »

I did chemical engineering so there wasn't a lot of programming required but we did have the tremendous opportunity to learn to program in Fortran 77. That was useful...

Mac
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llimllib
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Post by llimllib »

Fortran: The oldest computer language still in current usage (tm)

not quite the 'sexy' language, if you will...
codewarrior
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Post by codewarrior »

GWBASIC, PASCAL, C, C++, VB, some VB and not trying my luck with PHP :D
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BDKR
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Post by BDKR »

After reading some of the posts, I'm glad my major was music.

However, I also agree that the goal of many of these is or should be to teach logic and learning how to think logically. From there, you take that ability and whatever tool (language) you decide to use and construct a solution.

I spent a lot of time interested in racing and built a couple of turbocharged Datsun 510's, very strong Chevy 250's and a front end conversion on a 94 Suzuki RF600 (Man I miss that bike!). I had no schooling for those things either. But doing them taught me that with the right blend of research and logical thinking, I could do a lot.

But I had to think logically to do any of those things.

The school that first succeeds there is going to kick out some great graduates.

Later on,
BDKR
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