Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!agate!thoth30.berkeley.edu!jmm
From: jmm@thoth30.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Message-ID: <8414@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 6 Apr 88 22:34:46 GMT
References: <3684@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <568@abcom.ATT.COM> <607@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <8538@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <1666@ur-tut.UUCP>
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In article <1666@ur-tut.UUCP> msir_ltd@tut.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) writes:
>It occurs to me that teaching programming to those in the "creative" arts
>- writing, drama, music, and the like - might be detrimental.  Programming
>requires a certain type of thought, very right-brained, very logical,
>whereas people in these disciplines are on the other side of the brain,
>and think in a more relational, intuitive manner.  Couldn't it be that
>forced programming will change the way these people think, and therefore
>possibly hinder their skills in their chosen area?  Does anyone know of
>any evidence to support or disprove this?

I don't have any hard and fast 'evidence,' but I did have an interesting experience
at an interview with Bank of America.
The interview was for a programming position, but they were trying to avoid hiring
CS students, on the basis that CS students in general are very poor at communicating with
anything other than a computer.

One of the people with whom I interviewed asked me if I was a musician.  He wanted to know
because it was his observation that musicians tend to make very good programmers.  He
thought it might be because musicians tend to be very good at recognizing how patterns
fit together.  And remember the stories about the code-breakers in WWII?  Quite a few
of them were recruited from military bands for the same reasons.

And I would tend to take issue with your statement that programming is more logical
than 'creative arts.'  Perhaps the actual implementation of the project does require
a very methodical, step-by-step methodology, but good design needs to be very
creative.  And there is a great deal of craft in art that requires the same type of
rigid mental process that writing code does.

/ James Moore		/    	|  jmm@bartleby.berkeley.edu
/ 			/	|--------------------------------------------|
/ Ma ta Gaeilge agut,	/	|   Nil aon speis ag Ollscoile na	     |
/ scriobh i!		/	|   California im bharulacha fein.           |