Why Programming Matters

1
Why Programming Matters
Eric Roberts Professor of Computer Science,
Stanford University Past Chair of the ACM
Education Board
NACCQ Napier, New Zealand 11 July 2009
2
Outline

• In recent years, there have been calls to reduce
  or eliminate programming from the computer
  science curriculum. The reasons offered in
  support of such proposals include
• Students increasingly seem to find programming
  both distasteful and difficult, which leads them
  to pursue other subjects.
• There are more jobs in the computing field that
  do not require programming, allowing students to
  succeed without this skill.
• Economic considerations have led to increased
  offshoring of software, reducing job
  opportunities in the developed countries.

• While there is some truth in each of these
  arguments, I am convinced that reducing
  curricular emphasis on programming would be a
  serious mistake with enormous economic costs.

• What we need to do instead is improve both the
  pedagogy and the practice of programming to
  restore the passion, beauty, joy and awe that
  Grady Booch described at SIGCSE 2007.

3
The Importance of Computing A Story
FINANCIAL TIMES
Friday, November 12, 1999
CLUSTERS The science of sizing up the
opposition The clusters have grown but silicon
fen still lacks the large companies of big rivals
writes Brian Groom. Hermann Hauser, venture
capitalist and co-founder of 20 Cambridge
companies, recently attended a conference of
European high technology executives. The last
question was where is the silicon valley of
Europe?
. . . Cambridge has made great strides but is
not yet in the silicon valley league. Stanford
alumni have produced companies worth a trillion
dollars. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
half a trillion dollars. If Cambridge is getting
to 20bn we will be lucky.
4
And Parliament Responds

• In 2000, a delegation of nine Members of the
  British Parliament visited Stanford to talk about
  how they might transform Cambridge into the sort
  of economic engine Stanford has been for many
  years.
• In my meeting with the MPs, I focused on
  Stanfords broad audience approach to teaching
  computer science, in which we try to give as many
  students as we can a serious introduction to the
  field, in the hopes that at least some of them go
  on.
• At the time, Stanford was doing well
• 75 of undergraduates took a CS module
• 12 of all first degrees were in CS
• CS attracted many of Stanfords best students

Barry Sheerman (chairman) Huddersfield,
Labour Charlotte Atkins Staffordshire
Moorlands, Labour Valerie Davey Bristol
West, Labour Michael Foster Worcester,
Labour Helen Jones Warrington North,
Labour Gordon Marsden Blackpool South,
Labour Dr Evan Harris Oxford West and
Abingdon, Liberal Democrat Stephen OBrien
Eddisbury, Conservative Nick St Aubyn
Guildford, Conservative
5
But the Timing Was Less than Perfect

• The dot-com collapse hit computing enrolments
  very hard.
• At Stanford, CS enrolments fell by 37 from 2000
  to 2006.
• The Computing Research Association (CRA)
  estimates that computing enrolment in the United
  States fell by almost 50 over that same period.
• Similar declines have been reported in most
  developed countries.
• In the last few years, enrolments have again been
  rising.
• Stanfords enrolment has risen by almost 20 in
  each of the last two years.
• The CRA recently reported that the numbers for
  the United States grew slightly in the last year.
• Despite this good news, the rate of degree
  production remains too slow to meet industrial
  demand.

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The Need for Greater Understanding

• The failure of universities to produce a
  sufficient number of graduates with the necessary
  computing skills is now widely recognized as a
  crisis in both academia and industry.

• Unfortunately, the underlying causes for the
  decline in student interest are not well
  understood. Although several theories seek to
  explain the decline in student interest, they do
  not provide a comprehensive explanation of
  student behavior.

• For the last several years, Ive been working to
  develop a compelling narrative of the sort Bill
  Gates described during his visit to Stanford.
  That narrative is as yet incomplete, and I
  welcome any comments and criticisms.

7
Possible Reasons for the Decline
8
But Industry Demand Remains High

• The computing industry offers some of the best
  employment opportunities for university
  graduates. The following data are from the
  United States, but the situation is similar
  elsewhere
• The number of jobs in the domestic software
  industry are at an all-time high and are
  projected to grow dramatically over the next
  decade.
• Salaries for newly minted B.S. graduates in
  Computer Science are high, sometimes exceeding
  the 100,000 mark.
• In 2005, Money magazine rated software engineer
  as the number one job in America.

• Producing enough students with strong computing
  skills is essential for any nation that wants to
  maintain competitiveness in todays global
  economy.

9
Degree Production vs. Job Openings
160,000
Ph.D.
140,000
Masters
120,000
Bachelors
100,000
Projected job openings
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
Engineering
Physical Sciences
Biological Sciences
Adapted from a presentation by John Sargent,
Senior Policy Analyst, Department of Commerce, at
the CRA Computing Research Summit, February 23,
2004. Original sources listed as National
Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources
Statistics degree data from Department of
Education/National Center for Education
Statistics Integrated Postsecondary Education
Data System Completions Survey and NSF/SRS
Survey of Earned Doctorates and Projected Annual
Average Job Openings derived from Department of
Commerce (Office of Technology Policy) analysis
of Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002-2012
projections. See http//www.cra.org/govaffairs/co
ntent.php?cid22.
Sources
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A Thought Experiment about Offshoring

• Suppose that you are Microsoft and that you can
  hire a software developer from Stanford whose
  loaded costs will be 200,000 per year. Over in
  Bangalore, however, you can hire a software
  developer for 75,000 per year. Both are equally
  talented and will create 1,000,000 annually in
  value. What do you do?

• Although the developer in Bangalore has a higher
  return, the optimal strategy is to hire them
  both. After all, why throw away 800,000 a year?
• Any elementary economics textbook will explain
  that one hires as long as the marginal value of
  the new employee is greater than the marginal
  cost. The essential point is that companies seek
  to maximize return, and not simply to minimize
  cost.

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Possible Reasons for the Decline
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The Problem Starts Early
The UCLA HERI study shows that students have
already made their decisions before they reach
university.
Source Higher Education Research Institute at
UCLA, 2005
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Computing Faces Challenges in Schools

• People who have software development skills
  command high salaries and tend not to teach in
  schools.

• In many schools, computing courses are seen as
  vocational rather than academic.
• Students who are heading toward top universities
  are advised to take non-CS courses to bolster
  their admissions chances.
• Because schools are evaluated on how well their
  students perform in math and science, schools are
  shifting teachers away from computer science
  toward these disciplines. Those disciplines,
  moreover, often actively oppose expanding
  high-school computer science.

J

• Administrators find tools like PowerPoint more

sexy
and
exciting.

• Computing skills in generaland programming in
  particularhave become much harder to teach.
• Teachers have few resources to keep abreast of
  changes in the field.

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Possible Reasons for the Decline
15
Possible Reasons for the Decline
16
The Curriculum Has a Second-Order Effect

• The computing curriculum as traditionally
  implemented has deficiencies and can always be
  improved.

• As an explanation for declining enrolments,
  however, the curriculum is broken theory has
  serious shortcomings

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Students Like Our Courses But Go Elsewhere
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Possible Reasons for the Decline
19
The Real Image Problem
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vCmYDgncMhXw
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The Reality Is Also a Problem
Has anyone considered the possibility that its
just not fun anymore?
Don Knuth, October 11, 2006

• Students at Stanford have expressed the following
  concerns
• Long hours with little chance for a balanced life
• A less pleasant social milieu than other
  occupations

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The Code-Rush Syndrome
From March 1998 to April 1999 an independent
documentary film crew followed a team of software
engineers at Netscape Communications as they
lived through a watershed moment in the brief
history of their company and the Internet.
Code Rush, WETA television, 2001
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The Reality Is Also a Problem
Has anyone considered the possibility that its
just not fun anymore?
Don Knuth, October 11, 2006

• Students at Stanford have expressed the following
  concerns
• Long hours with little chance for a balanced life
• A less pleasant social milieu than other
  occupations
• A sense that success in programming is possible
  only for those who are much brighter than they
  see themselves to be
• Work that is often repetitive and unchallenging,
  particularly when it involves maintaining legacy
  technology
• Work that has become more difficult than it used
  to be
• No chance for a lasting impact because of rapid
  obsolescence
• Fears that employment with an individual company
  is dicey even though opportunities are good in
  the industry as a whole
• Frustration at being managed by nontechnical
  people who make more money but are not as bright
  (Dilberts boss)

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Dilbert vs. the Boss
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For Some, Programming Is the Enemy

• Because students respond more negatively to
  programming than they once did, some have argued
  for reducing its emphasis in the university
  curriculum.
• As an illustration of this trend, consider the
  following post that appeared on SIGCSE-MEMBERS on
  August 14, 2006

25
Industry Is Not Amused

• Every technical person in the industry with whom
  Ive spoken is horrified by the prospect of
  reducing the emphasis on programming in the
  undergraduate curriculum.

• Employers in developed countries with high-tech
  sectors are desperate for more people with
  programming talent. In his keynote at ITiCSE
  2007 in Dundee, Scottish entrepreneur Chris van
  der Kuyl said that the lack of programming talent
  was the greatest limiting factor in the industry.

• At meetings of the ACM Education Council in
  recent years, industry representatives have been
  united in their concern about the scarcity of
  competent software developers.

• In a new graduate-level course taught at Stanford
  by Monica Lam and Martin Rinard, the course
  description begins like this The key to
  delivering a successful software project is to
  hire top notch programmers.

26
Industry Reports a Labor Shortage
April 28, 2005
Gates Cites Hiring Woes, Criticizes Visa
Restrictions
By David A. Vise
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said
yesterday the software giant is having enormous
difficulty filling computer jobs in the United
States as a result of tight visa restrictions on
foreign workers and a declining interest among
U._S. students in computer science. lttabgtSpeaking
on a technology panel at the Library of Congress,
Gates said a decline in the number of U._S.
students pursuing careers in science and
technology is hurting Microsoft in the short run,
and could have serious long-term consequences for
the U._S. economy if the problem is not
addressed. lttabgtWe are very concerned that the
U._S. will lose its competitive position. For
Microsoft, it means we are having a tougher time
hiring, Gates said. The jobs are there, and
they are good-paying jobs, but we dont have the
same pipeline.
http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic
le/2005/04/27/AR2005042702241.html
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But There Are Contrary Arguments
In the July 2008 Communications of the ACM,
Villanova professor Stephen Andriole and I
debated the relevance of programming in the
computing curriculum. Steve argues that the
commodification of enterprise software means that
there is no longer as much need for programming
expertise in that sector. I respond that this
sector is only one of many, and that the demand
for employees with good programming skills is
both large and growing.
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Programming Remains Central

• Calls to reduce or eliminate programming from
  computing curricula arise from some undeniable
  assumptions
• There are more jobs in IT that dont require
  programming.
• Programming is not particularly popular with
  students today.
• Offshoring of programming jobs has increased.

• Unfortunately, this analysis ignores the
  following equally valid propositions
• There are more jobs in IT that do require
  programming.
• Programming has historically been what attracts
  students the most.
• Globalization has created more IT jobs in
  India/China and the U.S.
• Offshoring exists largely because of a shortfall
  of skilled employees.

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Critical Observations about Software
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Critical Observations about Software
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Essential and Accidental Complexity
To see what rate of progress one can expect in
software technology, let us examine the
difficulties of that technology. Following
Aristotle, I divide them into essence, the
difficulties inherent in the nature of software,
and accidents, those difficulties that today
attend its production but are not inherent. . . .
The complexity of software is an essential
property not an accidental one. Hence,
descriptions of a software entity that abstract
away its complexity often abstract away its
essence.
Fred Brooks No Silver Bullet IEEE Computer,
April 1987

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Critical Observations about Software
33
The March of Progress
34
Sobering Thoughts

• There are more public methods in the java and
  javax package hierarchies than there are words in
  Jensen and Wirths Pascal User Manual and Report.
  The amount of explanation once deemed sufficient
  to teach the standard introductory programming
  language is thus no longer sufficient for an
  index of the operations available today.

• Typical software today exists at a level of scale
  and complexity that would have been unthinkable a
  generation ago. The most common operating system
  used in mobile phones, for example, contains
  approximately 100 million lines of code.
• Given the scale of modern software systems, it is
  typically impossible for students to develop
  projects as extensions to existing code
  frameworks. An academic term is now barely
  sufficient to understand what is already there,
  leaving no time for further development?

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An Illustrative Example
In their book Java Puzzler, Josh Bloch and Neal
Gafter pose a variety of puzzles to test the
readers understanding of Java, including the
following
Students are regularly taught that the
statements x and x 1 are
equivalent. In Java, describe a situation in
which the first statement is legal, but not the
second. How about the other way around?
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Java Scoping
If you execute the program shown at the right in
Java, what output will it generate? Why?
37
Critical Observations about Software
38
Variations in Programmer Productivity

• In 1968, a study by Sackman, Erikson, and Grant
  revealed that programmers with the same level of
  experience exhibit variations of more than 20 to
  1 in the time required to solve particular
  programming problems.
• More recent studies Curtis 1981, DeMarco and
  Lister 1985, Brian 1997 confirm this high
  variability.
• Most industry insiders believe that the
  productivity variance is even higher today. In
  2005, Googles VP for Engineering, Alan Eustace,
  told The Wall Street Journal that one top-notch
  engineer is worth 300 times or more than the
  average.

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The Microsoft Programming Personae
Microsofts cultural lore defines three types of
programmers
Mort is your most common developer, who doesnt
have a CS background, may even be a recent
newcomer, and doesnt quite understand what the
computer is doing under the covers, but who
writes the dinky IT programs that make businesses
run. Elvis, more knowledgeable, cares about code
quality, but has a life too. Einstein writes
some serious-ass piece of code like device
drivers, wants to get things done, needs to be
able to go low level and high level, needs a
language without restrictions to get his job done.

Wesner Moise, Who are you? Mort, Elvis or
Einstein, September 25, 2003
http//wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/2003/09/
who_are_you_mor.html
For the most part, Microsoft (along with Google
and other first-rank companies) are seeking to
hire the Einsteins, which explains the low hiring
ratio.
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Productivity Variations Are Common

• The idea that individuals might differ in
  productivity by two or more orders of magnitude
  initially seems hard to believe.

• In fact, such differences in effectiveness occur
  across a range of occupational categories
• Mathematicians
• Creative artists (writers, composers, poets,
  painters)
• Entertainment (musicians, actors, motion-picture
  directors)
• Financial wizards, CEOs
• Professional athletes

• No one achieves mastery in these fields through
  talent alone. Training and practice are
  essential. As Malcolm Gladwell notes in
  Outliers, mastery of any field typically requires
  10,000 hours.

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Paul Grahams Hackers and Painters
When I finished grad school in computer science I
went to art school to study painting. A lot of
people seemed surprised that someone interested
in computers would also be interested in
painting. They seemed to think that hacking and
painting were very different kinds of workthat
hacking was cold, precise, and methodical, and
that painting was the frenzied expression of some
primal urge. lttabgtBoth of these images are wrong.
Hacking and painting have a lot in common. In
fact, of all the different types of people Ive
known, hackers and painters are among the most
alike. lttabgtWhat hackers and painters have in
common is that theyre both makers. Along with
composers, architects, and writers, what hackers
and painters are trying to do is make good things.
Paul Graham
(photo by Niall Kennedy)
http//www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
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Alternative Models of Software Education
If software development is really an art, it
might make sense to create conservatories for
the teaching of software arts, similar to music
conservatories. One possibility might be some
sort of New England Conservatory of Coding. (Or
perhaps a Hogwarts School for Software Wizardry.)
If software development is really an art, it
might make sense to create conservatories for
the teaching of software arts, similar to music
conservatories. One possibility might be some
sort of New England Conservatory of Coding. (Or
perhaps a Hogwarts School for Software Wizardry.)
If software development is really an art, it
might make sense to create conservatories for
the teaching of software arts, similar to music
conservatories. One possibility might be some
sort of New England Conservatory of Coding. (Or
perhaps a Hogwarts School for Software Wizardry.)
Another model might be to create intensive
programs that encourage students to focus on the
art of software development, in much the same way
that programs like the University of Virginias
Semester at Sea program offers a concentrated
immersion in oceanography, geography, and
cultural anthropology.
SEMESTER AT C
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Three Student Personae
Taking a cue from Microsofts classification of
programmers, it is interesting to think about
different students that computer science attracts

• In the boom years, we tended to attract the
  entrepreneur, lured by the dream of start-up
  riches. That student now heads for finance.
• Most academic programs tend to focus on creating
  the engineer, but that lifestyle strikes todays
  students as boring.
• We need to attract the artistsomeone who can
  appreciate the passion, beauty, joy, and awe that
  make our field exciting.

And consider not only how much easier it is to
find female artists to serve as role models but
also how much easier it is to convince women that
the lifestyle of an artist might be attractive.
Emily Carr
Mary Cassatt
Dora Carrington
Frida Kahlo
Georgie OKeeffe
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Knuths Turing Award Lecture (1974)
When Communications of the ACM began publication
in 1959, the members of ACMs Editorial Board
made the following remark as they described the
purposes of ACMs periodicals
If computer programming is to become an
important part of computer research and
development, a transition of programming from an
art to a disciplined science must be effected.
Don Knuth
lttabgtSuch a goal has been a continually recurring
theme during the ensuing years for example, we
read in 1970 of the first steps toward
transforming the art of programming into a
science. Meanwhile we have actually succeeded in
making our discipline a science, and in a
remarkably simple way merely by deciding to call
it computer science.
ACM Turing Award 1974
http//doi.acm.org/10.1145/361604.361612
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What We Need To Do

• Recognize that the problems extend well beyond
  the university.

• Press government and industry to improve
  computing education in the schools, possibly
  through public-private partnerships.
• Take creative steps to bolster both the image and
  the reality of work in the profession.
• Make it clear to students (as well as faculty)
  that programming remains essential to much of the
  work in the field.
• Emphasize the beauty of programming by focusing
  more attention on software as an art.
• Explore new styles of pedagogy that are more
  finely attuned to artistic domains.

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The End