Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!udel!rochester!rit!mjl
From: mjl@cs.rit.edu
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: CS education [engineering, mathematics, and computer science]
Message-ID: <1418@cs.rit.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 89 20:54:56 GMT
References: <1417@cs.rit.edu> <34851@regenmeister.uucp>
Sender: news@cs.rit.edu
Reply-To: mjl@prague.UUCP (Michael Lutz)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 38

In article <34851@regenmeister.uucp> chrisp@regenmeister.uucp (Chris Prael) writes:
>
>You use an excuse that has been abused for a quarter of a century.  It
>may be appropriate in computer science.  In software engineering it is a
>refuge of the incompetant.  

Incompetence is in the eye of the beholder.  Perhaps your math
preparation was inadequate and flawed, in that it did not make you
competent enough to see a relationship that is apparent to me and many
others (see -- I can make an ad hominem attack too -- now can we get
back to the issue at hand?).

>I suspect that what we have really been saying here, and I paraphrase
>Richard Botting, that it is past time for computer science and software
>engineering to go their seperate ways.

Assuming for the moment that Richard is right, you should realize that
many -- if not most -- of the formalists would end up on the software
engineering side of the fence.  They believe they have a lot to say
concerning the engineering of software artifacts.  I believe this too,
but I think the message isn't being framed very well.

>The weltanschaungs differ too
>greatly for most communication between the two fields to be
>constructive.

I hope this is never true -- it would be like severing the link between
physics and electrical or mechanical engineering.  However strained the
relationship, the engineering disciplines still depend on the more
scientific/theoretical disciplines.  The same should hold true between
CS and SWE.

>Chris Prael

Mike Lutz
Mike Lutz	Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester NY
UUCP:		{rutgers,cornell}!rochester!rit!mjl
INTERNET:	mjlics@ultb.isc.rit.edu


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