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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

At university in 2005 I studied Mathematics and Computer Science in my first year, hoping for a path into theoretical computer science (e.g. complexity theory). I couldn't find one; mathematics had its discrete side, and made use of programs in many areas, but was uninterested in the theory of computation; computer science was mostly java training (I chose mathematics).

So I'm pleased if such research is going on, because back then I went deliberately looking for it and couldn't find it.

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> I couldn't find one; mathematics had its discrete side, and made use of programs in many areas, but was uninterested in the theory of computation; computer science was mostly java training (I chose mathematics).

I don't understand why schools do that. There is so much to know and learn in computer science course, yet somehow learning j2ee takes precedence above everything else.

I suspect that has to do with businesses telling the university what they need out of a CS graduate. Certainly happened when I was going to school. Interestingly, the guys doing the fascinating math and research were in Electrical Engineering, CS was for programmers.

It's certainly not like that in Germany. There is usually one Java course in the first semester. The rest is math and cs theory.

It's the same in France. But the language is not necessarily Java, it may also be C, OCaml, Scheme, Python… depending on your university.

To be fair, France is insanely biased towards maths. The typical curriculum if you want a correct career in CS outside of research is to go through an engineering school and the amount of maths (and physics) you need to enter and then to graduate is mostly equivalent to a BSc. I did an engineering degree in France and an MSc in the UK, I can compare. Globally, a French student leaving high school has done slightly more maths than a UK/US first year university maths major (calculus and basic linear algebra are taught in high school). A typical CS major in France, independently of the cursus, will most likely have done the same amount of maths than someone with a maths MSc in the UK (I am talking of a 5 years curriculum which is standard for a CS degree in France). If you take a country still using the old French curriculum like Marocco, the difference is even worse. Part of the high school maths program of Marocco are only taught in advance algebra course in the UK (stuff like cyclic groups).

Everytime I read this kind of article, I can't prevent myself from thinking it's mostly a UK/US problem.

Okay. I suspected that but I didn't know how much that is the case. Thanks.

first year maths at a UK university normally includes a lot more than just "calculus and basic linear algebra"

Using Java as a language to teach about data structures and algorithms is one thing, centering the curriculum on a bunch of J2EE crap is entirely another.

You can make a case for using Java to teach about data structures, and if your alternative is C++, that case is pretty solid. If your alternative is C or Python, both sides can be argued.

Teaching J2EE at uni isn't CS education, it's poorly-aimed vocational education.

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