Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!cs!cs.Princeton.EDU!rks
From: rks@cs.Princeton.EDU (Ramesh Sitaraman)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Textbook for Intro. Comp. Theory course
Message-ID: <2994@rossignol.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 23 Sep 90 00:04:32 GMT
References: <12007@chaph.usc.edu> <9627@ubc-cs.UUCP> <12037@chaph.usc.edu>
Sender: news@cs.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University
Lines: 57

In article <12037@chaph.usc.edu> wilber@aludra.usc.edu (John Wilber) writes:
>In article <9627@ubc-cs.UUCP> manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes:
>
>If "Computer Science" isn't the "science of computers" then pray tell what 
>is it?  

It is the science of computation and computers. Specifically theoretical
computer science studies computation abstractly and has applications
to a wide number of things ranging from the foundations of mathematics 
to engineering aspects of computers. Also note that Theory of
computation predates computers even though a lot of modern 
interest to study the nature of computation stems from the
practical benefits it may have.

>Also if computer science has nothing to do with computers why should
>anyone bother wasting time studying it (aside from being viewed as an
>esoteric branch of mathematics)?  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 dont you say that to a theoretical physicists who worked on 
Quantum mechanics for the sole purpose of knowing. Where would
the semiconductor industry be without QM. Usually science
and engineering go hand in hand abstract results feeding 
more concrete applications. (IMHO, some of the programming oriented
people dont understand this because what they do is usually not
tied in with either science or engineering. )


>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.

You may be in right that a computer professional may not have to care
much for theory (except may be the most basic stuff). Much of
what they do (as I said earlier) is  just a sophisticated form of
book keeping or accounting. They dont usually use many 
scientific/mathematical principles (as in Engineering which requires 
the use of physics or chemistry or biology) in their work. But academic
Computer *science* is a different thing altogether. 


			Ramesh Sitaraman


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