The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

Yes, I share your concern: how to program well -though a teachable topic- is hardly taught. The situation is similar to that in mathematics, where the explicit curriculum is confined to mathematical results; how to do mathematics is something the student must absorb by osmosis, so to speak. One reason for preferring symbol-manipulating, calculating arguments is that their design is much better teachable than the design of verbal/pictorial arguments. Large-scale introduction of courses on such calculational methodology, however, would encounter unsurmoutable political problems.

If there is one 'scientific' discovery I am proud of, it is the discovery of the habit of writing without publication in mind.

Are you quite sure that all those bells and whistles, all those wonderful facilities of your so called powerful programming languages, belong to the solution set rather than the problem set?

Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees.

The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.