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The problem with this title is that in the reference, "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", the character actually has something that's relevant to his travels.
by stackcollision 13y ago
The problem with this title is that in the reference, "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", the character actually has something that's relevant to his travels.
- mathattack 13y agoMaybe they're trying to allude that the liberal arts degree isn't completely worthless?
- gruseom 13y agoProgramming is writing.
- nirnira 13y agoProgramming is to writing what building a machine from basic electronic components to electrically stimulate vocal cords is to speech.
- norswap 13y agoDespite the flurry of Stunk&White analogies, I actually found the two activities to be quite distinct. I think in part because language is much more general (you could say "lose") and because programming exhibit concepts that are nowhere to be found in language (even at the "language" level, programming idioms have little to do with actual idioms).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nimblegorilla 13y agoGood developers also tend to have good communication skills (such as writing). There isn't a 1-to-1 mapping, but things like Strunk&White can give a lot of insight applicable to developers. One example is Strunk&White's idea of a style guide, a concept that all multi-developer software projects should implement to some degree.
- noname123 13y agoI have a BA in CS from a liberal arts school and I completely agree. Nothing in math or computer science is "discovered," but we're just learning and then writing a long narrative documenting the beauty and truth of the Universe. (Some people just have a stick up their a$$ because they happen to have done time to please someone else in either ivory tower or other powers, to think that what they do is better than shoveling snow).
- nirnira 13y agoI think that's the joke.
- oftenwrong 13y ago"Have X, Will Y" pre-dates that novel http://www.word-detective.com/2013/07/have-gun-will-travel/ http://www.word-detective.com/2013/07/have-gun-will-travel/
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The problem with this title is that in the reference, "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", the character actually has something that's relevant to his travels. Surely the reference is to the saying "Have Gun, Will Travel" (to which "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" was also a reference) which was popularly used to mean "I am prepared for anything", which is exactly the theoretical point behind a liberal arts degree (though not specifically a degree with a major in the humanities, though the latter are generally also the former, and the article seems to use them interchangeably; "liberal arts" is orthogonal to the major field of study.)