Re: Unicode in the Curriculum?

On 30 Dec 2015, at 16:45, Phillips, Addison wrote:

>> A few months ago I asked a class of 140+ first year Computer Science
>> programme and Joint programme students -
>>
>> Who has heard of Unicode?
>
> I do a similar survey whenever I teach the remedial I18N and Unicode classes at Amazon. When I ask if software developers *ever* received any formal education on internationalization or on character encodings, results are almost universally negative--more like zero percent than 20%. Which is one reason why we have to spend a significant amount of effort maintaining a training and education program.
>
> I suspect I'm not alone in the industry in thinking that educational establishments could do a better job of preparing developers with at least the basics of Unicode, character encodings, and internationalization.
>
> Addison Phillips
> Principal SDE, I18N Architect (Amazon)
> Chair (W3C I18N WG)
>
> Internationalization is not a feature.
> It is an architecture.

I have been hitting my head against the Academic Brick Wall for years WRT getting IT i18n and Unicode on the curriculum and I am losing. I did teach a final year elective module on IT i18n but a few months ago my University dropped it. I am continually puzzled by the lack of interest University Computer Science departments have in i18n. I appear to be a solitary UK University Computer Science voice when it comes to i18n.

…and I think this is where Industry comes in. I think that Industry should be lobbying/pressuring University Computer Science departments to get i18n and Unicode on the curriculum. If industry does not speak up then I cannot see anything changing in Academia. Academia will continue teaching text processing using ASCII only.

André Schappo

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Unicode [mailto:unicode-bounces_at_unicode.org] On Behalf Of Andre
>> Schappo
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 8:16 AM
>> To: Unicode Public
>> Subject: Unicode in the Curriculum?
>>
>> A few months ago I asked a class of 140+ first year Computer Science
>> programme and Joint programme students -
>>
>> Who has heard of Unicode?
>>
>> about 20% of the students raised their hands.
>>
>> then I quickly followed it with the question
>>
>> …and who understands Unicode?
>>
>> Every single student whose hand was raised put it down.
>>
>> Some of these students were really experienced programmers, having
>> programmed from an early age.
>>
>> Many times over the years I have informally asked students studying in the
>> UK (1st, 2nd, 3rd year undergrad, MSc, PhD, home students, international
>> students) what they know of Unicode and the vast majority of the time they
>> know nothing or next to nothing.
>>
>> The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the teaching of Unicode is not
>> on the curriculum of Schools, Colleges or Universities in the UK. IMHO, It
>> should be!
>>
>> I do wherever and whenever I can, incorporate Unicode in my teaching e.g.
>> recently I gave an introductory lecture on Regular Expressions and in my
>> examples I demonstrated, using Unicode text and patterns and not just ASCII.
>>
>> One such example I used was — /^人+鸭人+$/
>>
>> This regex is a reference to Hongkong and the visiting giant floating rubber
>> duck😄
>>
>> My regex examples also include Emoji and Egyptian Hieroglyphs😄
>>
>> Does anyone on this list teach Unicode at an Educational Establishment,
>> School, or College or University?
>>
>> André Schappo
>>
>
Received on Thu Dec 31 2015 - 05:09:48 CST