Moore's law is as much about economics as it is about shrinking. For all you code types, switching to a new device is not just as simple as fabricating a new chip in a research lab. Thousands of experimental devices and chips have been made in many research labs. Moore's law is about being able to consistently manufacture more and more millions (and now at billions) of very small transistors every generation (for silicon, this used to be about 1-1.5 years in the late 90's early 2000's).

Did SICP at Berkeley. Really awesome course. Thanks MIT for not teaching it anymore. Makes me a better programmer than your new grads now. Hah!

It doesn't, is the point that the folks who came up with SICP are trying to make.

Well the real issue is defining what's better. And the worry some of us have is this new trend of grappling with increased complexity seems short-sighted; we don't like the direction it's going. As much as Sussman shows understanding of the current situation, what he's saying is also a criticism--doing this sort of ad hoc "science by poking but not really science" is the heart of the issue.

And what's interesting is if you look at actual scientific research around programming, say dealing with concurrency and advanced tools like model checking, etc—all of that is very theoretical stuff that assumes you know SICP or have equivalent foundations. So it's not really an argument that theory is dying; in face of this new level of complexity in practice, perhaps we could benefit from theoretical research now more than ever.

It's hard to argue with productive results, however. If this "poking" results in valuable engineering more than SICP does, then "poking" needs to at least be seriously looked at and understood, if not outright taught to the next generation of software engineers.

The real problem, I think we can all agree, is the lack of widespread specialization of degree programs. Computer Science is still the blanket degree everyone gets, when in reality, some kind of trade program is likely sufficient to train many of today's "developers" (the "pokers").

My point is that it DOES. My single statement assertion was making that implicit assertion...

Why do you think you know more than they do about this?

I am simply expressing my preference and opinion.

Yes, and I'm asking what reasons you have for holding that opinion.

It's certainly not linear, though; I think it will be interesting to see what's better in the long run. It's obviously impossible to measure, due to unpredictable factors such as changes in industry and market and competition.

As a whole, though, I think people, especially in our industry, aren't stupid. Free food would certainly be a more competitive retention factor (than ping pong) -- barring that your company's biggest competitors in terms of hiring aren't also offering free food.