Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!usc!apple!amdahl!fai!kurtl
From: kurtl@fai.UUCP (Kurt Luoto)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education [engineering, mathematics, and computer science]
Message-ID: <2608@fai.UUCP>
Date: 21 Nov 89 17:21:31 GMT
References: <1398@cs.rit.edu> <34770@regenmeister.uucp> <5481@nucleus.UUCP>
Reply-To: kurtl@fai.fai.com (Kurt Luoto)
Organization: Fujitsu America, Inc
Lines: 45

In article <5481@nucleus.UUCP> dar@nucleus.UUCP (Dario Alcocer) writes:
>In article <34770@regenmeister.uucp>, chrisp@regenmeister.uucp (Chris Prael) writes:
>> 
>> Computing does not have that excuse.  Only two modest segments of
>> mathematics contains elements that can even remotely be called
>> fundamental contents of our toolkit: elementry arithmetic and boolean
>> algebra.  Both of these are pretty elementry when compared to the math
>> recipies needed by civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers.  Is that
>> why we pretend to mathematical content that is not there?
>> 
>> Chris Prael
>
>I'll have to disagree with you Chris.  I can think of two branches of
>mathematics that have _everything_ to do with computing...
>
>Graph thoery - [...]
>
>Combinatorics - [...]
>
>Dario Alcocer

I agree with Dario.  I would also mention computability and complexity
theory and numerical analysis as branches of mathematics which are
fundamental to computing in general.

I would guess that the majority of computing practitioners,
which includes programmers, software engineers, etc,
use relatively little mathematics on a daily basis.
By the same token, most of the daily routine of other professions
probably includes little of the practitioner's specific training
in that profession.  (For example, I'd like to know how much of
a senior physicist's time is devoted to actually "doing physics"
rather than writing grant proposals, supervising grad students
or junior physicists, filling out purchase orders, fighting
political battles within and without his department, etc.)
But that is not to say that there is no content to these fields
of study.  Nor does it mean that the practitioner can safely
ignore studying the fundamentals of his field.

Pet peeve: I hate the term "computer science", but it seems that
we will be stuck with it for some time to come.
-- 

----------------
Kurt W. Luoto     kurtl@fai.com   or   ...!sun!fai!kurtl