Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!aplcen!haven!adm!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Textbook for Intro. Comp. Theory course
Message-ID: <29541:Sep1820:32:0790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 18 Sep 90 20:32:07 GMT
References: <392sis-a@massey.ac.nz> <12007@chaph.usc.edu>
Organization: IR
Lines: 28

In article <12007@chaph.usc.edu> wilber@aludra.usc.edu (John Wilber) writes:
> In article <392sis-a@massey.ac.nz> C.Eagle@massey.ac.nz writes:
> >I  have been asked  to  survey netters  on textbooks  for  a course on
> >introductory computer  theory.
> As far as I have been able to tell, the concept of a "good" textbook on 
> "computer theory" is an oxymoron.  Since such books are invariably
> written by computer science theoreticians and computer science theoreticians 
> invariably know almost nothing about computers (as one would expect 
> from mathematicians) the textbooks I have seen have all been dismally
> uninformed about the realities of computer technology (and even good
> theory for that matter).

Be serious. The classic example of a computer text written by a
mathematician is Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, which is arguably
the best set of books in either mathematics or computer science. Do you
seriously believe that ACP is ``uninformed about the realities of
computer technology''?

I don't want to start a flame war on the merits of mathematics versus
computer science, the irrelevance of computer science to computer
programming, or the common belief that the half of math degrees that
migrated to CS represent the bottom half. I just want to point out that
your snubs will be resented by mathematicians around the world. You may
be right that computer science theoreticians invariably know almost
nothing about computers, but you shouldn't imply that theoretical CS has
anything more to do with mathematics than linguistics does.

---Dan