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Johannes Ernst

Based on a recent experience, it appears one can go through some well-respective computer science colleges and get a bachelor's, without having any idea what to do with a #Linux terminal / shell. Is that true?

8 comments
Linus Probert

@J12t why wouldn’t it be? Although being very handy for software development. The “computer” in “computer science” is OS agnostic.

Johannes Ernst

@liquidityc It's a bit like if you become an electrical engineer, but you don't know how to operate an oscilloscope. There need to be some practical table stakes IMHO.

Linus Probert

@J12t all programming languages I can think of work outside of linux and I know plenty of people who make a living in .Net or game dev which is primarily geared towards non Linux platforms so although it seems a bit cumbersome to avoid Linux. I don’t see it as impossible. I don’t know much about electrical engineering but I imagine it’s very hard to pass without fiddling with an oscilloscope.

tikitaki

@J12t it's true. it's not necessary to know #linux to understand software development

of course typically it goes hand in hand - sort of like someone who hunts probably knows how to skin a deer

not necessarily though - he can always bring the dead animal to a butcher.

Johannes Ernst

@takishan I’m thinking that Unix and its successors had such a monumental impact on software that formally teaching computer science without exposure to that monumental impact leaves out some of the foundations. Even if you never touch Linux professionally because you focus on iOS or whatever, during college you should have been exposed, and you can’t really be exposed without doing some terminal stuff. I don’t need professional bash programmers, but a basic idea of the shell?

ShadSterling

@J12t many colleges have CS programs rooted more in theory than in practice, and you don’t need any computing device at all to study the theory. I think it’s because many colleges originated in a tradition of intellectual hobbies for men so rich they could expect to never have to work for income, and recent changes have not transformed them into trade schools. And since trade schools don’t have software engineering programs, the closest thing I know of is boot camps

EmberQuill :v_gf:

@J12t I stopped at an Associate's instead of getting a Bachelor's, but based on the courses I was taking when I dropped out and the remaining courses I needed for the Bachelor's, that seems to be the case. Of course that was a decade ago now so things might have changed.

der.hans

@J12t one can, but why would one want to? :)

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