We're finding candidates with a math, physics, or engineering background are better prepared to write software than CS graduates. I don't really understand why that should be the case.

When I did a CS degree in the 80s we did roughly the same amount of maths as engineering courses and all of the more difficult CS classes (generally the more mathematical/formal ones) were mandatory - there was a relatively small amount of choice and certainly no way to graduate without being a fairly decent developer and quite happy with formal abstractions.

Unfortunately, as the article describes, many CS courses have become "customer focused" so are now, as far as I can see, attempting to become vocational training courses, which universities are generally pretty awful at. When I finished my undergraduate course (with a 1st) the only thing I felt qualified to do was go into postgraduate research - which is pretty much what the course was oriented towards, although this was only apparent in retrospect.

"Real" CS is irrelevant to 98% of development jobs. In my opinion anyone believing that a CS degree will train them to be a good developer is going to get a nasty shock.

Having said that, some of the very best developers I have worked with did have the combination of awesome raw talent and CS degrees (often PhDs). Of course, I've also worked with some equally good developers (in their own way) who didn't have a degree.

In my opinion those majors are generally more challenging than CS and thus the graduates will be of a higher intellectual caliber. Additionally, folks pursuing technical careers with those degrees will be more likely to have a personal passion for technology. They also won't have the bad habits that CS programs often instill in graduates, they will look to the workplace and the industry standards as a guideline for their habits and behaviors rather than their college professors and fellow class-mates.