Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsb!liberte From: liberte@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU Newsgroups: net.cse Subject: CS vs. CE Message-ID: <13500008@uiucdcsb> Date: Fri, 5-Sep-86 17:53:00 EDT Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.13500008 Posted: Fri Sep 5 17:53:00 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 7-Sep-86 02:55:01 EDT Lines: 60 Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsb:13500008:000:3081 Nf-From: uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU!liberte Sep 5 16:53:00 1986 Regarding an earlier note on electrical engineering: The question of how much electrical engineering is relevant to computer science study depends on how you define the fields. Since there is a field of computer engineering as distinct from computer science, we should take advantage of the fairly distinct boundary between these fields. It is clear to me that the closest one needs to get to electrical engineering to understand how computers execute software is the level of combining NANDs and NORs in a logic design course. Below that, the particular technology is irrelevant to computer science since the logic is supposed to do the same thing no matter what the technology is. Logic circuits may even be simulated on computers - so who needs hardware anyway? :-). By implication, my view is that computer science should confine itself to the abstractions of the computer world - software, theory, machine design; whereas computer engineering is concerned with the hardware, electronics, and peripherals. Should computer engineering be considered a subset of computer science or of electrical engineering or neither? Of course it helps to know about your neighboring fields to understand how your own field fits in. And it is necessary to have generalists who understand more than two fields in order to integrate the neighborhoods. But there is enough to learn within each of these fields such that we need not divert study time for mostly irrelevant, tangential fields. However, if there is a personal desire to explore other fields, this should be encouraged rather than discouraged in favor of specialization. For proficiency requirements, I would like to see less focus on digital electronics as well as numerical analysis. These two cross disciplinary topics are required often times because there are teachers to teach it and a large body of knowledge to teach, not because they will be useful to the student. An interesting question is what "computer scientists" are doing day and what they will be doing in the future. Some give an historical argument for why numerical analysis and digital electronics are relevant. Some computer science departments evolved out of math, some out of electrical engineering, but computer science should be out on its own by now. Imagine if your computer science department evolved out of business or psychology or physics. Would you want to be required to take business, psychology, or physics courses? How about art or music or any other field in which computers are used? I would like to see requirements that take into account the importance of user interfaces (graphics, psychology of programming) and application areas other than numerical analysis such as data bases and symbolic math. Alot more research is needed in these other areas and computer science will eventually be filled out to the extent that the old war-horses of numerical analysis and electronics will become less important. I'm just getting a little impatient. Dan LaLiberte liberte@b.cs.uiuc.edu liberte@uiuc.csnet ihnp4!uiucdcs!liberte