Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!oahu!martin
From: martin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (david l. martin)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Textbook for Intro. Comp. Theory course
Message-ID: <39153@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 20 Sep 90 20:26:12 GMT
References: <12007@chaph.usc.edu> <9627@ubc-cs.UUCP> <12037@chaph.usc.edu>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 42

In article <12037@chaph.usc.edu> you write:
>
>...  You can study turing machines for your 
>whole life without generating any results of any particular value to
>the world (though you can certainly fill up a lot of technical journals
>with the stuff, perhaps to be read by other "computer science theoreticians").
>
>Why are those students in the class anyway?  Will spending six weeks studying
>chomsky grammars be of more value than studying bus design or data migration
>strategies?  Certainly all three of these are "theoretical" in that they
>are not specific to a particular application, but understanding the latter
>two is important on a day-to-day basis for computer professionals.  Don't
>get me wrong.  I don't think that studying that kind of stuff (grammars,
>turing machines, etc.) is COMPLETELY worthless.  I just think it's a minor
>marginal area of computer science and not worthy of being pressed into 
>center stage by mathematicians posing as computer scientists.
>
>I have joined the ACM off and on over the years and always end up letting
>my membership expire when I get tired to the intellectual posturing of
>mathemeticians posing as computer scientists.  Reading through a hundred
>papers full of superficial mathematical trivia is not worth the occasional 
>one paper of real interest.

You really seem to be mixing several issues up together.  As to the assertion
that computational mathematics is really of minor value or of minor
practical importance, if you really think that, you're just reflecting
the perspective of your own narrow niche of the computer world.  As one
or 2 others have pointed out, mathematical models and analyses have had
a lot of immensely important applications, including applications in
language design, compiler design, system and network design, and
design of software applications as well.

As to all this business about intellectual posturing and posing as computer
scientists, what makes you think the field isn't big enough for the
mathematicians AND the real-world-system types?  Why does it have to
be one or the other?  Finally,  why have you forced yourself to read through 
hundreds of mathematical papers that don't interest you?  Can't you just accept
that they are of interest to others?

Dave Martin
C.S. Dept. (grad student)
U.C.L.A.