Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!akgua!usl!elg From: elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) Newsgroups: net.cse Subject: Re: Role of computer science Message-ID: <953@usl.UUCP> Date: Fri, 3-Oct-86 13:23:08 EDT Article-I.D.: usl.953 Posted: Fri Oct 3 13:23:08 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Oct-86 12:14:15 EDT References: <699@sdcc12.UUCP> <10202@cca.UUCP> <1032@gilbbs.UUCP> Reply-To: elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) Organization: USL, Lafayette, La. Lines: 51 Keywords: Science, Engineering In article <1032@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes: > > Richard Harter points out that the original work done in the area of >computer methodology was not, in fact, done by "Computer Scientists" but >by the early programmers. True enough. MY error. > I believe that my separation of Computer Science and Programming into two >distinct, if slightly over-lapped disciplines remains essentially valid. SLIGHTLY overlapping? All the theories in the world are of no use if not for applications. Much of the early work in formal languages and automata was spurred by a very practical problem -- writing compilers that work. If you look at all the people who made large contributions to the "parsing problem", most of them were programmers, who were busy trying to get something done, and had the theoretical knowledge to sit back, look at what they were doing, and say "Hey! I can draw some conclusions from this!" With a little research, I can probably come up with some examples, but in any event, it would probably not be an overstatement to say Computer Science is advanced by people who have BOTH programming knowledge AND theoretical knowledge. A valid method of research is to recognize a problem, devise a solution to that problem, and try to discover the theoretical underpinnings of that solution... if you are well versed in both theory and execution, it works quite well. I've done something similiar myself... the library is stripped bare by hoards of CS grad students at the beginning of each semester, meaning a 2 week wait for any books you need, and while waiting for some books to solve a problem in an area new to me, lots of doodling got me to a point amazingly close to the theories in the books about that particular topic... Let's face it, one of the principles of science is EXPERIMENTATION. Einstein had his "Thought Experiments" to combat the lack of equipment capable of travelling at near light speed, but computer scientists have computers. By the way, somebody above posted his college's curriculum. It was amazingly difficult, consisting of hoards of numeric analysis, electrical engineering, and other such stuff. My gawd, with all that stuff, how do the students ever have time to learn?! (just a slight bias I have -- I've learned much more outside of computer science class, following my interests, than I've learned inside those classes...). -- Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg (Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509) " In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."