Re: misconceptions on computer science
From: Shayne Wissler (thalesNOSPAM000_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/05/04
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Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 15:28:01 GMT
"Alan Gauld" <alan.gauld@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:5gt3h0dd9ok43ageb249g8ri9kgm4do8rj@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 21:55:58 GMT, "Shayne Wissler"
> <thalesNOSPAM000@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > 2. You're wrong. All of those are ultimately there *in order that* the
> > programming will be done most efficiently. Both CS and SE are about the
same
> > thing: programming a computer.
>
> Again I disagree. For example I would argue that CS probably
> doesn't need to spend much time on testing, but an SE degree
> would have, I hope, at least an entire semester devoted to it,
> if not more.
And this furthers your position how?
> OTOH CS should also be about considering how to make
> programs execute more effectively as well as how to write them
> - defining the theory of parallel computing for example is a CS
> activity in my view. Of courese SE do get involved in CS just as
> EE get involved in electronics research doing physics, the two
> practices are overlapping. Im just saying they have a different
> focus and priority set.
Right: One is concerned primarily with usefulness and the other is concerned
primarily with knowledge.
> > > in an economical context. An enginering solution which cannot be
> > > produced economically is no solution at all.
> >
> > What is your point?
>
> That scientists often solve problems in ways that cannot e
> economically realised. The scientist, having solved the problem
> may well consider that a successful conclusion. An Engineer
> would consider that a failure.
Or a prototype or proof of concept. He wouldn't necessarily consider it a
failure.
> > knowing is a virtue, this includes natural science. "Computer science's"
> > only justification for existence is in order to do--there is no virtue
in an
> > algorithm that does not lead to some practical result;
>
> There speaks an engineer!
> Of course there is virtue in algorithms for their own sake, just
> for the at and beauty of their form.
Show me an algorithm that is beautiful but useless. Not, by the way, an
algorithm that produces beauty (such as fractal generators) but an algorithm
that itself is beautiful and useless.
> In science a lot of work
> goes into things which have no immediate benefit. Consider all
> the work done on binary number systems, long before anyone
> thought of applying it to computers. Or the work by Boole on
> logic, again he had no comcept of applying his work incomputing
> or electronics, he did it out of curiosity and because he liked
> the beauty of the results. A lot of pure science is like that.
That wasn't computer science it was mathematics. And you can claim they did
it for beauty, heck, even they could claim that, but if it wasn't really
about knowledge that it's not valid.
> > who study algorithms just because they are there are just goofing off,
>
> No they are doing pure science. How they get it funded is another
> matter, but given a suitable benefactor the research is perfectly
> legitimate science.
If you want to further your position you're going to have to come up with
examples.
> > > So what about the guys who invented the first machines?
> > Like Babbage? He was an engineer of course.
>
> He was because he was trying to build a machine.
That did something useful.
> > Be specific--what guys and what machines are you talking about?
>
> I'm thinking about people like Turing and his contemporaries
> who were trying to think about what would happen *if* they hasd
> such a machine. (Turing of course was a mathematician and would
> never have claimed to be a scientist, but his work falls into wat
> today would be considered CS).
What specific thing that Turing did are you talking about? And why do you
think that engineers can't think about the implications of a machine they
might construct?
> And although Turing et al eventually got to try to build their
> machine it took a war to provide the funding. They had been
> working on the concepts long before that.
Non sequitor. Babbage worked on his machine's design long before he got the
funding too.
> > > working on that level. Indeeed many of the results of CS have yet
> > > to be built because the machines don't exist that can do the job.
> >
> > More evidence that they are goofing off.
>
> No, they are researching the future. Maybe someday we will have
> such machines. Indeed much of what they envisaged in the 70's has
> come to pass. This is the nature of science.
Examples please.
> > It's likely that the machines will never be built because they
> > are fantasy constructs not things that can ever be made real.
>
> Just so, but if only 10% of what they dream up comes to pass they
> are doing a useful job. And even if none of it does, but it fires
> the imagination of an engineer who takes the idea in a different
> direction, it is still worthwhile IMHO.
That's just a bit too vague and woozy to talk about. Let's see some examples
that further your position.
Shayne Wissler
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