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Bertrand Meyer. Software Engineering in the Academy. (IEEE Computer, May 2001). PDF.
I liked this text a lot so I felt it's my duty to share some quotes with you
"While just teaching use of the tools fashionable at a certain time may curry favor with students and their families (who can relate them to the skills most often requested in employment ads), doing so is not necessarily the best service you can give to future professionals. What matters is teaching them fundamental modes of thought that will accompany them throughout their careers and help them grow in this ever-changing field."
"Among the most important things that professional software engineers know are concepts that recur throughout their work. Most of these concepts are not specific techniques. If they include a technique, they go beyond it to encompass a mode of reasoning. This defines the most exciting aspect of being a professional software engineer: the mastery of some of these powerful and elegant intellectual schemes that, more than any particular trick of the trade, constitute our profession’s common treasure. Most of them cannot be taught in one sitting but rather are learned little by little through trial, error, and skillful mentoring. I retain the same awe that I first felt when I started discovering them, and they make up the most important, if sometimes immaterial, body of knowledge that, as a teacher, I try to impart to novices."
I liked this text a lot so I felt it's my duty to share some quotes with you
"While just teaching use of the tools fashionable at a certain time may curry favor with students and their families (who can relate them to the skills most often requested in employment ads), doing so is not necessarily the best service you can give to future professionals. What matters is teaching them fundamental modes of thought that will accompany them throughout their careers and help them grow in this ever-changing field."
"Among the most important things that professional software engineers know are concepts that recur throughout their work. Most of these concepts are not specific techniques. If they include a technique, they go beyond it to encompass a mode of reasoning. This defines the most exciting aspect of being a professional software engineer: the mastery of some of these powerful and elegant intellectual schemes that, more than any particular trick of the trade, constitute our profession’s common treasure. Most of them cannot be taught in one sitting but rather are learned little by little through trial, error, and skillful mentoring. I retain the same awe that I first felt when I started discovering them, and they make up the most important, if sometimes immaterial, body of knowledge that, as a teacher, I try to impart to novices."
But they're tools that are peripheral to programming itself, and central to talking about work that probably someone else is going to do. They're seductive tangents.
Must be New Year's mess. Frankly, I do not remember how I came upon this article. Do not think I was looking for it specifically.... Maybe just found it on Mr Meyer's site when looking for something else. I *am* interested in learning/teaching, though. Learning has more practical applications for me right now, but the main discovery this site brought to me is that when there is no artificial separation into "pupils" and "teachers", learning is much more effective, for adults at least. So am interested in teaching as well. 
