Wolfram is completely wrong about computer science in the 70s. I graduated in 1975 with a Computational Science degree and went on to a PhD where the thrust of the department and my research was to close the semantic gap between the computational problem and the language used to program solutions. There was no reason to use assembly language in 1973; there were several high level languages such as Algol 68, Simula and so on. I used C and PL360 (Niklaus Wirth). We also studied how to write programs to solve problems (e.g stepwise refinement). Dijkstra was a well known figure in writing "correct" programs. There was work on proving programs correct. Simula had already introduced object orientedness and Smalltalk took it further. Parallel programming was being looked at (Hoare). The 1970s and 1980s were very interesting, ground breaking times in computing science.
UIUC CS is being held back as the city of Champaign never bothered to make the local airport upgrade a priority. It's not connected to Silicon Valley, Austin or New York.
I'll say something more coherent, which is that CS majors should take their math and CS theory courses seriously, and not fall into the "why do I need this to be a software engineer?" attitude, that we see in undergrads all the time. Building your theory skills will allow you to adapt faster to new trends, and stand out in the workplace. It's not the only path to success, it's not required for all paths, but I see too many undergrads with a bad attitude for it (and then they worry about being replaced with AI...).
Clickbait title. Don't study computer science -> IF you want to do computational maths in some field (geography, bio, etc). Stephen also has no clue about a modern CS education. We learn C only for Computer System Organization and Operating Systems (and Assembly as a little "treat" lol). Basic operating system logic is actually still useful (threading, process management, etc). I did feel silly learning about how hard drives work, though. TL;DR: Learn computer science if you want to build software. Do computational x, y, or z if you want to do computational x, y, or z. Or start with one then introduce the other in a grad program. Learning never stops.
Hi Morkal! I invite you to watch the full interview where he mentions more behind his reasoning such as many people who never studied computer science and are still better coders than those who studied computer science. But I don't want to put words into Dr. Wolfram's mouth so I would kindly invite you to the watch the full interview to have the full context.
@@uiuctalkshow To quickly address what you mentioned, coding is not the entirety of CS. It's a means to an end. That's why even within CS/Software Engineering, we tell newcomers not to obsess too much over the language. But yes, I am aware that this video is just a soundbite. I was just pointing out the clickbait title in all caps lol.
@@morkallearns781 but people just knowing HTML,CSS, JS land job in Google, and whereas CS major students might not. In nutshell if you know programming then comapnies hire you, they dont care if you know x86 or RISC , CISC or harvard architectures based Assembly or malloc in C. In fact I know many pepole dont want to attend CS degree anymore as they can learn job related skills on youtube 😆
@@ravirajchilka Good luck convincing employers you know how to code without either a 4 year degree or work experience. Technically you don't need a degree to learn anything.
@@morkallearns781 You are wrong. A CS degree is not a derivative of physics like other branches of engineering are. A typical electrical engineering or mechanical eng, etc. which are core branches of engineering need 4 years of degree. However its not true for CS degree as you can go on youtube on learn it and practice coding or learn OS or Computer architecture. This is not true for nonCS degrees. I never considered CS as part of engineering degree. I am myself electrical engineer I bet you have to have a 4 years degree to be an engineer in such non-CS branches. You may try studying it on youtbe but you would eventually need a professor at some point to disucss tough parts of engineering/physics. Dont beleive me? buy a book on Dynamics by R.C. Hibbeler and and try self studying it. You would come a conclusion that you need a teacher. For CS you dont need a teacher as its not as difficult as electrical,mechanical, industrial or chemical engineering. TH-cam can make you CS engineer
Not sure I understand his point. Is he against university? As in study computer science yourself? Or against literally learning computer science, in which case how would someone develop the computational skills for X that he talks about
I think he advocates reform in computer science trajectories such that it emphasizes the higher-level, abstracted concepts of computation and higher-level computational languages as well as advocating trying to interveave the computational paradigm in the non-computer science STEM fields. He seems to then recommend students to pick that field they’re interested in, but approach it from this newer computational paradigm rather than the classic approach.
he's saying go into a field that uses computation to do x, instead of study computation for the sake of computation. . I think he wants the field possibly abolished and split into several others that are more specialized.
tldw: Go into a field that uses computation to do x, instead of study computation for computation sake, CS should be abolished and split into several fields that are more specialized.
I've seen relational database applications that were built by people who didn't study computer science, and it was obvious that they didn't, because the databases were nowhere near 3rd normal form, the performance of the applications was abysmal, data redundancy, what's a primary key? more prone to corruption, you name it every amateur database design error in the book was made. And for a short time I worked for these people, I would try and show them the error of their ways, but no their way was better. They were completely clueless, and these terribly performing databases were out there being used by customers who of course knew no better. Head shaking stuff.
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a CS grad and we've learned low, mid and high level languages. Computer Science teaches you about the disciplines and the inner workings of an application and more. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY.
I used to think Stephen Wolfram was one of the smartest people to ever live but now he just sounds like a nutjob like Michio Kaku. And he blatantly takes claim for writing books that he does not write.
Sound like this professor does not know about CS. He is not a CS guy and offer wrong description about what CS to teach and learn. Mislead to young people who want to learn the future of computation science.
Wolfram is completely wrong about computer science in the 70s. I graduated in 1975 with a Computational Science degree and went on to a PhD where the thrust of the department and my research was to close the semantic gap between the computational problem and the language used to program solutions. There was no reason to use assembly language in 1973; there were several high level languages such as Algol 68, Simula and so on. I used C and PL360 (Niklaus Wirth). We also studied how to write programs to solve problems (e.g stepwise refinement). Dijkstra was a well known figure in writing "correct" programs. There was work on proving programs correct. Simula had already introduced object orientedness and Smalltalk took it further. Parallel programming was being looked at (Hoare). The 1970s and 1980s were very interesting, ground breaking times in computing science.
that was 50y ago, speaking of now he is more than right
UIUC CS is being held back as the city of Champaign never bothered to make the local airport upgrade a priority. It's not connected to Silicon Valley, Austin or New York.
That's true. Even just an easier way to get to Chicago would be helpful. A faster train would be great!
Someone is still not over failing those first-year CS proof courses. Let it go Stephen!
I'll say something more coherent, which is that CS majors should take their math and CS theory courses seriously, and not fall into the "why do I need this to be a software engineer?" attitude, that we see in undergrads all the time. Building your theory skills will allow you to adapt faster to new trends, and stand out in the workplace. It's not the only path to success, it's not required for all paths, but I see too many undergrads with a bad attitude for it (and then they worry about being replaced with AI...).
Clickbait title. Don't study computer science -> IF you want to do computational maths in some field (geography, bio, etc). Stephen also has no clue about a modern CS education. We learn C only for Computer System Organization and Operating Systems (and Assembly as a little "treat" lol). Basic operating system logic is actually still useful (threading, process management, etc). I did feel silly learning about how hard drives work, though.
TL;DR: Learn computer science if you want to build software. Do computational x, y, or z if you want to do computational x, y, or z. Or start with one then introduce the other in a grad program. Learning never stops.
Hi Morkal! I invite you to watch the full interview where he mentions more behind his reasoning such as many people who never studied computer science and are still better coders than those who studied computer science. But I don't want to put words into Dr. Wolfram's mouth so I would kindly invite you to the watch the full interview to have the full context.
@@uiuctalkshow To quickly address what you mentioned, coding is not the entirety of CS. It's a means to an end. That's why even within CS/Software Engineering, we tell newcomers not to obsess too much over the language.
But yes, I am aware that this video is just a soundbite. I was just pointing out the clickbait title in all caps lol.
@@morkallearns781 but people just knowing HTML,CSS, JS land job in Google, and whereas CS major students might not. In nutshell if you know programming then comapnies hire you, they dont care if you know x86 or RISC , CISC or harvard architectures based Assembly or malloc in C. In fact I know many pepole dont want to attend CS degree anymore as they can learn job related skills on youtube 😆
@@ravirajchilka Good luck convincing employers you know how to code without either a 4 year degree or work experience. Technically you don't need a degree to learn anything.
@@morkallearns781 You are wrong. A CS degree is not a derivative of physics like other branches of engineering are. A typical electrical engineering or mechanical eng, etc. which are core branches of engineering need 4 years of degree. However its not true for CS degree as you can go on youtube on learn it and practice coding or learn OS or Computer architecture. This is not true for nonCS degrees. I never considered CS as part of engineering degree. I am myself electrical engineer I bet you have to have a 4 years degree to be an engineer in such non-CS branches. You may try studying it on youtbe but you would eventually need a professor at some point to disucss tough parts of engineering/physics. Dont beleive me? buy a book on Dynamics by R.C. Hibbeler and and try self studying it. You would come a conclusion that you need a teacher. For CS you dont need a teacher as its not as difficult as electrical,mechanical, industrial or chemical engineering. TH-cam can make you CS engineer
Not sure I understand his point. Is he against university? As in study computer science yourself? Or against literally learning computer science, in which case how would someone develop the computational skills for X that he talks about
I think he advocates reform in computer science trajectories such that it emphasizes the higher-level, abstracted concepts of computation and higher-level computational languages as well as advocating trying to interveave the computational paradigm in the non-computer science STEM fields.
He seems to then recommend students to pick that field they’re interested in, but approach it from this newer computational paradigm rather than the classic approach.
@@Ruktiet makes sense, thanks.
@@Ruktiet how can a student approach a subject from a different perspective than the professor's, and expect that perspective to be better?
he's saying go into a field that uses computation to do x, instead of study computation for the sake of computation. . I think he wants the field possibly abolished and split into several others that are more specialized.
@@mznxbcv12345i dont understand. How are you going to study computer security and cyber if you dont know memoey management of computers and C?
I published a dozen Palmilot apps in 68000 assembly language.
tldw: Go into a field that uses computation to do x, instead of study computation for computation sake, CS should be abolished and split into several fields that are more specialized.
I like the 2 passive virgins sitting beside him.
He's not wrong, but four years is not a long time, and every major maintains historical cruft.
Thank you for watching! We invite to watch the full interview with Dr. Wolfram.
I think his point was it shouldn't be a major for most people who want to do computational stuff
I've seen relational database applications that were built by people who didn't study computer science, and it was obvious that they didn't, because the databases were nowhere near 3rd normal form, the performance of the applications was abysmal, data redundancy, what's a primary key? more prone to corruption, you name it every amateur database design error in the book was made. And for a short time I worked for these people, I would try and show them the error of their ways, but no their way was better. They were completely clueless, and these terribly performing databases were out there being used by customers who of course knew no better. Head shaking stuff.
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm a CS grad and we've learned low, mid and high level languages. Computer Science teaches you about the disciplines and the inner workings of an application and more. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY.
I used to think Stephen Wolfram was one of the smartest people to ever live but now he just sounds like a nutjob like Michio Kaku. And he blatantly takes claim for writing books that he does not write.
Sound like this professor does not know about CS. He is not a CS guy and offer wrong description about what CS to teach and learn. Mislead to young people who want to learn the future of computation science.
No-code AI tools make programming obsolete.
it's not gonna happen dude
WTF is he talking about