Just checked for emails from the PC parts suppliers to find Joel Spolsky's latest blog: The Perils of JavaSchool. He complains that a smaller proportion of Comp. Sci. graduates are much good at programming now that degree courses teach Java and avoid trickier stuff like pointers and recursion.

When I was recruited by IBM back in 1980, I was part way through a maths degree and had only done some recreational programming. But I like to think that the maths problems I was solving proved I could pick up programming, which turned out eventually to be the case.

Actually, it wasn't quite as straightforward as that. One of my early assignments at IBM was to write a compiler for a graphics workstation. I failed miserably as the only computation modules I did in my maths degree were rather more theoretical (e.g. programming language semantics and error correcting codes). The standard comp. sci. module on compiler writing was not on the syllabus.

But my maths degree gave me the basic problem solving skills I would need in interface design, assembly language optimisation, dump analysis, software system design, etc., once I had taken suitable courses.

So, given the turning of comp. sci. degrees to Java, maybe it's time for software companies to reconsider their hiring policies and give more credence to other non comp. sci. degrees such as maths, classics, languages, etc.