Comment by blakeyrat
10 years ago
We're in an industry where absolutely nobody learns anything from the past.
People going to school to learn software development don't spend a week on DOS, a week on Novell 4, then a week on Macintosh 6.0.8, then a week on Windows 98, a week on BeOS, etc. There's no history education at all. No learning from past ideas. Not even any conception of history, really.
Compare it to, for example, a film class. Students learning how to create films watch films. They watch films from the 1910s, the 1930s, the 1950s, etc. They learn how their industry changed and matured over time. They get a solid sense of history, and an appreciation for their forebears. Software developers get none of that.
Anyway, this shouldn't come as a surprise, is what I'm getting at.
> People going to school to learn software development don't
...usually have offered anything that even purports to be a "software development" curriculum.
They usually have a "computer science" curriculum.
Well, yes... but I don't see how that changes or even addresses my point at all.
I think it explains the reason for your point: that people aren't being prepared for a career in software development (and particularly user interface design) by a curriculum that is overtly not focused on software development, and particularly overtly not focused on human/software interaction, is unsurprising, and not a problem of curriculum being poorly designed for its overt purpose.