Comment by aleph_minus_one
5 hours ago
> My point is that most younger developers couldn't explain the difference between a mutex and a critical section, or how the OS handles a thread quantum, if their lives depended on it.
To my knowledge this is taught in some "Operating System" course, and typically students have to do a hands-on implementation of at least some central parts of an operating system. So I guess these students simply did not pay attention in the respective course. :-(
I'll help you out: all CS students are required to take an entry-level OS course. Again, you are making incredibly weak arguments given that most students are required to take an English writing course but then can't remember most of it.
It isn't that they didn't learn it: the issue is that most CS students graduate and work in areas that require zero OS knowledge. For example, when would I spin up a thread versus a fiber? Even ring-3 devs need to have some level of understanding if they want to create performant software.
First, I didn't work with the right universities. Now the students I work with "didn't pay attention".
/ignored
> First, I didn't work with the right universities. Now the students I work with "didn't pay attention".
I can only say that my university-time experience was so much different, and I do observe a similar interest among younger students. So I am hypothesizing what could be the reasons.
But concerning your point, I would indeed claim that the hypotheses "wrong university" and "students did not pay attention" are positively correlated: I think a university where many students are not actually not very interested, excited and curious about the topics that are taught in the lectures does not form a good learning environment.