Known as CS 5, the course focused on hard-core programming, appealing to a particular kind of student — young men, already seasoned programmers, who dominated the class. This only reinforced the women’s sense that computer science was for geeky know-it-alls.
The idea that someone will be able to succeed as a programmer without enjoying programming for its own sake is patently absurd.
It's not that any professional programmer must be able to handle "hard-core" programming classes, any effective programmer must relish this sort of material. It's part and parcel of being a programmer.
Indeed. But getting caught in infinite loop dreams s*cks.
To reduce the intimidation factor, the course was divided into two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and “black” for everyone else. Java, a notoriously opaque programming language, was replaced by a more accessible language called Python. And the focus of the course changed to computational approaches to solving problems across science.
“We realized that we needed to show students computer science is not all about programming,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas, chairman of the department. “It has intellectual depth and connections to other disciplines.”
With regard to Python vs. Java: Python is a simpler language to get started in - it needs less boilerplate, and requires less rigor with regard to declaring variables and types. But from a conceptual point-of-view, Python supports far more sophisticated programming concepts - list comprehensions, coroutines, lambda expressions, etc., than does Java.
And as to those connections to other disciplines - they are various disciplines of mathematics - computation theory, discrete math, logic, etc. In other words, the other disciplines require more discipline, and more intellectual rigor, than does Comp Sci.
I do it for the money, I really don't like it. To me a really complex software problem is like beating your head against a wall once you've corrected the problem, stopped beating your brains out, it feels good. I live for that 30 seconds of satisfaction. The feeling doesn't last too long but whatever...