Computer Science: Theory and Practice

Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software gave an outstanding talk at Yale which he has written up on his blog. For budding Computer Science majors, people getting into the computer world or business, there is a lot of good wisdom to be found here:

My favorite passage is the discussion about the value put on software, from the perspective of those who are involved in creating it. Here's how he introduces the topic, but you should really read the whole thing:

"Currently, in the battle between the geeks and the suits, the suits are winning, because they control the budget, and honestly, I don’t know if that’s such a bad thing. The suits recognize that there are diminishing returns to fixing bugs. Once the software hits a certain level of quality that allows it to solve someone’s problem, that person will pay for it and derive benefit out of it." (from Joel on Software)

The talk is in three sections, read them all!

1. Talk at Yale: Part 1 of 3

2. Talk at Yale: Part 2 of 3

3. Talk at Yale: Part 3 of 3