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From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Repository of AI source code
Message-ID: <7049@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 24 Dec 90 16:56:49 GMT
References: <11331@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <5282@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> <1933@enuxha.eas.asu.edu>
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Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH
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In article <1933@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> reece@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Glen A. Reece) writes:
>[...] I'm
>currently working in the area of job shop scheduling for my thesis in
>AI and I'm running into the vary problem of reinventing work that I
>know for a fact was done in the past.  In fact, I'm working with
>Karl Kempf from the Intel AI Lab in Santa Clara, California, and his
>position is that the results of the work must be made available so
>people don't keep bumping their heads against the same walls.

This is a problem endemic to most areas of science and engineering.
Science and engineering advance only when communities of investigators
share their findings with each other, and build on the results of 
previous work.

The traditional vehicle for sharing findings is, of course, the
printed literature. This vehicle was adequate in ancient times
when most scientists and engineers worked on comparatively simple
problems. When your results consisted of a few concise equations,
maybe a few plots and nomographs, or a manageable table of data,
your paper was a complete summary of your work. Any of your peers
with comparable skills could read your paper and immediately begin
building on your results.

Today, computer technology has enabled scientists and engineers to
embark on complex research that tends to defy concise verbal 
explanation. Most significant results today can't be *functionally*
expressed in words, since their real expression is now in computer 
code. That doesn't render words obsolete---we still need those
high-level descriptions to organize our approach to the low-level
details. However, merely reading a high-level description no longer
enables the reader to reproduce the original results, nor to build 
on them productively and efficiently.

The traditional literature is now faltering in its mission as a vehicle 
for sharing ideas. Technical readers once expected to read a paper, 
and find something immediately useful. Today, many technical papers 
read more like advertisements, their functional content emasculated, 
and the reader no more capable after finishing the paper than before.

This sad trend appears to be the result of two forces: 
(1) traditionalism, and (2) hucksterism. 

Historically, science developed as a hobby of the idle rich. Scientific
results also tended to be too simple to have much commercial potential.
Since hucksterism was not a necessary or practical choice for
scientists most of the time, they had the luxury of establishing a
rather lofty tradition of excluding it. However, scientists still had 
a scarce commodity to ration---peer recognition. Instead of competing 
economically, they competed on the basis of the quantity and quality 
of their contributions to the literature. However, the exact nature
of those "contributions" became intimately entwined with the
particular technological basis for that literature: the printing press.
When science was simple, this was not a problem. Today, science is no
longer simple, but the definition of "contribution" still follows
from the technology of Gutenberg.

The massive expansion of science and technology after the Second World
War overwhelmed the breeding capacity of the idle rich. The only way
to sustain such expansion has been to recruit people from the middle
class, by turning science and technology into a set of professions.
For most scientists and engineers, peer recognition is more than 
something to feel good about while relaxing in the den. It is the key 
to sustaining and advancing careers.

At the same time, scientific results have become much more complex and
economically valuable. The scientist today, upon discovering something
useful, must consider its commercial potential before reporting it.
A useful result can now become the basis for a major new industry in
just a few years. This is a profound temptation for a salaried employee.

What is the answer? I don't know. Reward systems and productivity
in science and technology today need some serious investigation. 
Scientists and engineers need a vehicle for publishing their *complete*
results, not just advertisements about their results. They also need
incentives for doing so. We need some sort of "productivity index" to
attach to scientific publications (of all types). Does the publication
increase the capability of the reader in any measurable way?



--
Dan Mocsny				Snail:
Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu	Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171
	  dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu		University of Cincinnati
513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab)	Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171