> Opps - guess I'm in trouble with my Musicology degree..... ;-)
>
> Actually while Chris has a point, I think that with the way computers have been
> changing over the years and such, that anyone that has been forced in college to
> do research or self learning of any kind is going to be a far more valuable
> employee than a person simply having a degree in C.E.
>
> I know that many folks have often mentioned to me that they have observed that
> musicians have tended to make good programmers. I have often thought about that
> and pondered as to why that would be. I've come to the following conclusions
>
> 1) abstract thought patterns...
> Musicians are constantly thinking in terms of an artificial system. They deal
> with a base-7 world which has very specific rules based on style and period.
> They know for instance that what appears to be an A-flat 7th chord might really
> be a modified d-sharp chord acting as a raised II in C-major (i.e. German 6th),
> but the same notes could be a Domant-7th chord in D-flat Major. Same notes -
> different functionality - played differently - acts differently- etc. So for a
> good musician, there is a tremendous analysis that is done simply in the act of
> performing a piece.
>
> 2) Having to memorize a full hour's worth of music...
> Most music schools require a solo memorized recital for each student each year.
> You can never short-change the effort required to memorize a whole hour of
> music. In my case, I was an organist, so I was dealing with polyphonic music -
> four voices in the hands - one in the pedals. That's a huge effort. In order
> to accomplish that, the musician is having to constantly analyze the stuff -
> find patterns, make logic out of chaos, etc. This is especially a problem when
> you start dealing with set theory based compositions of the mid-20th contrary.
> (Yes - we had to do set theory work in music school....)
>
> 3) Creative work
> Improvisation ---- ARGGGGGG --- Take a style - improvise in that style. Follow
> the correct style --- etc. It's much more than simply playing a whole bunch of
> notes.
>
> 4) Self-teaching and research...
> In my case it was having to study 16/17th contrary treatises. - Had to teach
> myself German first..... Then had to figure out what the word "Schlectes"
> really meant in 16th century Thrungia. --- The ability to do self teaching is
> incredibly important in C.E. work. I guarantee you that if you can make sense
> of all of that, then you can make sense of most C.E. treatises. Quite honestly
> - I found Knuth rather easy to understand after having gone through all of the
> 16th century treatises.... ;-)
>
> Chris Weiss wrote:
>
> > I wasn't being the least bit silly.
> >
> > Unless I am mistaken I don't think complexity theory and algorithmic
> > analysis are part of the music or animal husbandry degree programs. I am
> > not saying that you have to be in college to learn fundamental computer
> > science, but it is more difficult to learn the basic theory outside of a
> > classroom setting.
> >
> > Being an "expert" in the syntax of a language and having good problem
> > solving skills may make someone an effective programmer, but being only a
> > programmer without the underlying framework of a computer science degree can
> > be a limiting factor. There are always exceptions, but I am talking about
> > trends and not exceptions.
> >
> > Would you hire a self-taught statistician? or a self taught mechanical
> > engineer? A programmer is to a computer scientist what a cad cam operator
> > is to a mechanical engineer. There is overlap between a programmer and a
> > computer scientist just as there is between the cad cam operator and the
> > engineer, but there is a fundamental gap between the former and the latter
> > in both categories. Learning through experience to craft a well written
> > program is not the same as having the cross training in engineering and math
> > that most computer science students have had.
> >
> > I have worked with many good programmers who could solve the every day
> > problem that crossed their desk quickly and elegantly, and they could often
> > solve some of the more difficult problems after a few years of experience.
> > However, I once saw an excellent programmer waste weeks on a problem that
> > was clearly NP-complete, meaning there was no polynomial algorithm. He was
> > an English major. Our CS intern at the time looked at the problem for half
> > a day and properly identified it as exponential. We hired the intern after
> > graduation, and she made more progress in her first year on the job than the
> > English major had in five years. The senior programmer wrote more lines of
> > code per week that the former intern had, but he lacked the training
> > necessary to solve some of the problems the recent grad was able to deal
> > with.
> >
> > I am sure we could go tit for tat with anecdotes. However, having worked
> > with several hundred programmers on everything from small teams to casts of
> > hundreds, I think that *IN GENERAL* there is no substitute for a computer
> > science degree.
> >
> > --
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Chris Weiss
> > mailto:chris_at_hpdbe.com
> > www.hpdbe.com
> > High Performance Database Engineering
> > Available for long and short term contracts
> >
> > "Larry Linson" <larry.linson_at_ntpcug.org> wrote in message
> > news:8WEA8.4277$Dx3.2845_at_nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
> > > Don't be silly. One of the best programmers I ever knew had a degree in
> > > Music, another had a degree in Animal Husbandry, and I have known many,
> > many
> > > other competent and capable people who had no degree at all. One
> > degree-less
> > > colleague held his own in the Research Division of a major computing
> > > company.
> > >
> > > In fact, quite a few years ago, we cringed whenever a new-hire had a
> > > Computer Science degree, because the probability was high that he/she
> > would
> > > expect to be assigned to write The Compiler That Saved Computing, and even
> > > though I worked for the largest computer manufacturer of the day, there
> > were
> > > precious few compiler-writing jobs available -- especially for entry-level
> > > CS grads.
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
>
Received on Sat May 04 2002 - 11:32:09 CDT
