Ask HN: Why do many CS graduates lack foundational knowledge?

Re:Ask HN: Why do many CS graduates lack foundational knowle... by zerkten on Monday March 20, 2023 @11:49AM (#35233355)

I kind of get what you mean, but you don't provide a good example. The first question is what are the specific technologies and why are they involved? If you take some outdated version of Java, this could be interpreted as teaching you to be a Swing developer, or how to apply Java for user interfaces and learning some fundamental design patterns.

Whether it is the former or latter matters a lot. Oftentimes the people taking the course don't appreciate which it either which is problematic. In your example, someone could be given a really good desktop programming class on Win32 whether they used Windows XP or Windows 10. The success of this is orthogonal to the tools at hand really. It is what the professor and/or students make of it.

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Re:Ask HN: Why do many CS graduates lack foundational knowle... by bobthepanda on Monday March 20, 2023 @08:51PM (#35241098)

In general, I find that many fresh college folks (new hires and interns alike) struggle with Java streams. Streams and stream adjacent things like Optional remove a lot of tedium and footguns from older Java code styles, and unfortunately learning them tends to be a speed bump for anyone onboarding to the code base from college, because it’s just not covered, even in a Java algos course where I believe they’d be fairly relevant.

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