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From: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Newsgroups: net.cse
Subject: Re: Role of computer science (was !Tom)
Message-ID: <285@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Sep-86 08:54:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.285
Posted: Thu Sep 25 08:54:39 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 05:35:43 EDT
References: <699@sdcc12.UUCP> <10202@cca.UUCP> <1729@mcc-pp.UUCP>
Reply-To: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 57
Keywords: Older then you think.

In article <1729@mcc-pp.UUCP> tiemann@mcc-pp.UUCP (Michael Tiemann) writes:
>In article <10202@cca.UUCP>, g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>> Tom Keller writes:
>> >    Without the theoretical foundations laid by
>> >    Computer Scientists (and their associates, mathematicians and EEs) the
>> >    "programmers" wouldn't have anything to work with.  It remains the
>> >    theoreticians who lead the way in the development of new computing
>> >    technology and methodology.
>> >
>> 	Er, ah, I hate to break it to you, but this simply isn't so.
>> Programming very much came first; the early programmers developed the
>> principles of programming pretty much ad hoc.  The theoretical foundations
>> were developed after the fact.  It would be much more accurate to say that
>> the theoreticians *are becoming* the leaders in the development of new
>> computing technology and methodology.
>> 
>> 	In the case of programming, the significant developments all
>> preceded the rise of computer science, which was very much an after
>> the fact occurence [and is still somewhat mired in the identity search
>> syndrome.]  Concepts (and implementation) of ideas such as databases,
>> operating systems, higher order languages, and data structures were
>> brought into being by programmers.  It should be noted, however, that
>> the early programmers were not "graduates of programming schools";
>> they had highly varying backgrounds with a predominence of Mathematics
>> and Engineering.
>> -- 
>> 
>> Richard Harter, SMDS Inc. [Disclaimers not permitted by company policy.]
>> 	For Cheryl :-)
>
>	Er, ah, I hate to break it to you, but the theoretical
>foundations were well in place before the programmers got there.
>Recursion and induction (two very powerful programming techniques)
>were well in place from centuries ago. The notion of an algorithm
>existed before electricity was even understood. Church invented
>the Lambda Calculus almost 20 years before LISP existed, theorem-proving
>systems of Gentzen preceded AI, and Kleene had a number of formal language
>results before the first compiler existed.

    I beleive the roots of Lambda Calculus can be traced farther back
 then that. People like liebnitz (sp ?) and others from the 12th -14th
 century. And the notion of artificial intelligence to the same period
 by I think Raoul (sp ?). One of my prof's showed my Computational
 Linguistics Class a reference in Latin from a book from that period.
 The words Artificial Intelligence were clearly distinguishable, even
 though it was Latin.
    The main problem with most Computer Scientist is that they tend
 to re-create the wheel, meaning they don't know about or ignore previous
 research or ideas (unless they see it in a recent Magazine or Journal).
 Thus we have people with the notions as stated in the above articles.

  If anyone wants I can look up the actual dates and names in my notes.

  mark
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