in reply to (OT) Real World Skills Versus CS Skills

I disagree with your breakdown in general.

CS is not about programming. CS is about math.

Confusing the two is far too common in our field.

Source control is a programming issue. Data structures and algorithms are a programming issue. A programmer should know many algorithms and many datastructures, and should be perfectly at home working with new versions of either. A good programmer needs to understand sufficient CS to "read the label" on a library or algorithm but doesnt need the skills to be able to "write the label".

I like the cooking/chemistry metaphor. If you are looking for someone to bake a cake you want someone who has had lots of experience in a kitchen cooking cakes, not someone who has never cooked a cake but who can synthesize vanilla from raw materials.

I also like astronomy metaphor. Computer science has as much to do with programming as astronomy does to the manfucture of telescopes.

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