Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!jfh From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: UNIX history made easy Message-ID: <17123@rpp386.cactus.org> Date: 10 Oct 89 14:09:17 GMT References: <20226@usc.edu> <17085@rpp386.cactus.org> <1858@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> <14920@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1694@muffin.cme.nbs.gov> <17108@rpp386.cactus.org> <11239@smoke.BRL. Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) Organization: TrishTrash Readers, Inc. Lines: 38 In article <11239@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >The point is, if you don't know who Backus, Dijkstra, Hoare, Knuth, >Thompson, Wirth, etc. are and what their major accomplishments were, >you shouldn't advertise yourself as a professional computer scientist. Why not? Do I have to know that Alexander the Great's father is the inventor of the Phillip's screwdriver to use one? >I don't recall anybody (except possibly you) claiming that attending >college courses in "computer science" sufficed to make one a computer >scientist. I'm only claiming that a course in The Great Names and Faces in Computer History would be a waste of my time. Sure, I knew what Backus did [ and I even know what to do with it ]. But I don't need to know that he didn't play Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Isle. I also know that a programmer who is going to spend his entire life working in COBOL writing payroll programs has no need for Backus' or Thompson's Greatest Hits. Point is, to present a seemingly arbitrary list of computer greats and claim this list is the basis for true computer professionalism is pretty snooty. Why is Thompson up there, for example, but Ritchie isn't? Go read that Turing Award paper again. What has Jensen been doing all these since he and Wirth worked on Pascal? I know what Wirth has been doing and I'm not impressed. As for Dijkstra, I used 2 goto's just last week and exited at least one loop in the middle. Is he going to have me fired? On the other hand, anyone who hasn't read ``The Mythical Man Month'' should be fired. As arbitrary statements go, that's one I can really believe in. -- John F. Haugh II +-Things you didn't want to know:------ VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | The real meaning of MACH is ... InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org | ... Messages Are Crufty Hacks. UUCPNet: {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------