Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!hao!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!hubcap!steve
From: steve@hubcap.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Computer Science: where it belongs
Message-ID: <646@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 09:09:13 EST
Article-I.D.: hubcap.646
Posted: Thu Nov 12 09:09:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 13:43:04 EST
References: <1752@pdn.UUCP>
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 23
Summary: My two cents worth (ain't much by today's standard)

>Maybe Computer Science should be in its own school as well.

I feel this would be a catastophic error.  It would add a level of
useless bureauracy at best.  In my opinion, it would more likely
remove the feedback mechanism which is extant in engineering / sciences.
While we would all like to believe that our particular discipline
is the "only true" one, it just ain't so.

Despite the constant bickering between sciences and engineering, the
reality is that they feed problems/solutions back and forth.  The
history of technology shows us that these interactions are necessary
and there is a necessary ebb and flow from "pure" to "applied" and
back.

The first problem - one that we have not yet come to grips with -
is the definition of the various products [ there are many classes
of folks ].  If we keep saying "computer is someone who is a carbon
copy of 'me'", then we'll be in trouble as a discipline forever.

-- 
Steve (really "D. E.") Stevenson           steve@hubcap.clemson.edu
Department of Computer Science,            (803)656-5880.mabell
Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906