The Hitchhiker's Guide to Software Languages

Ralf Lämmel, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.

There is only that much space in the CS curriculum, and there are always new subjects that should be accommodated by the curriculum. For instance, in our community, we would want all graduates to leave university with a modest background in technical spaces, software languages, and meta-programming; also, with conceptually informed and reasonably timeless skills to efficiently master related programming techniques and technologies. In reality, the curricula of few CS departments meet this expectation.

In this talk, I will discuss such curricula-related expectations of our community and the suboptimal situation at CS departments—as I perceive them. More importantly, I will allude to a revision of the CS curriculum that could optimize matters and may stand a chance for mid-term adoption.

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge collaboration with Jean-Marie Favre (OneTree Technologies, Luxembourg) and Dragan Gašević (Athabasca University, Canada) on the subject of this talk.

Extended abstract: pdf^?