People sometimes ask me why I dropped from Computer Engineering in UTFPR, in this article I'll try to expose the reasons that led me to this decision.
I ever loved Computers, Mathematics and Physics, but I can't do all the three at the same time, so I have studied Computer Engineering in UTFPR (Universidade Tecnologica Federal do Parana, Curitiba/PR Brazil) thinking that it would be Computer Science + Math + Physics, but I found it to be only Engineering.
Also, one of the main reasons is that I disagree with the teaching method utilized in several of the disciplines, the method is essentially pratical, what by itself leads to a large amount of problems. One thing I strongly disagree is the use of Java as a first language, I agree whith almost everything that is written in this article, and I see the results with my former colleagues, who don't know basic things such as dynamical memory allocation. A lot of them don't even like to program, which I think it's very weird, since programming is so fun.
Another problem is that there are almost no philosophical reflection about the main discplines' subject, this alienates the student, turning him into a mere machine. The greatest part of my former colleagues is now alienated. And this happens a lot in Engineering as a general subject. Of course there are some exceptions, but most of them are alienated too. This lack of reflection generates a big threat to our community, since they have learned no principles or ethics, many of them will develop non-free software in their carreers, and will turn themselves into our enemies, that's the reason why I still in contact with them all, I'm trying to warn them about the big threat that non-free software poses to our society. But most of them don't want to hear what I have to say, most of them are only concerned about the pratical advantages of the software, despite the fact that some of them use a GNU/Linux system (they prefer to call it "Linux", instead of GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux), they use it only because the pratical adantages that it provides. Unlike me, they don't see non-free software as a social problem, they use GNU/Linux only beause it's a better plataform for software development. So, I think that my mission with them is to convince them that non-free software is anti-ethical and a social problem, and shouldn't even exist. Many of them argue that the development of free software would not recompensate them with money, that's not true, most of the programmers out there works with customized software development, that only one individual (or company) will use. Along as this individual have the 4 essential freedoms that defines what is free software, then nothing wrong has been done. But money is a secondary issue here, much more important than money is ethics.
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