“Computer science is not about computers” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#51

Post by neonological » Sun, May 30, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #31

neonological wrote: post #5

It's technically not even a science. It's in the realm of logic and maths. After all we don't call algebra a science, why does computing all of sudden need the word? So to some it all up: computer science is neither about computers nor is it a science.

I suppose if we call it computer science, then perhaps all the other forms of science should really be called "reverse engineering" (especially biology.)

Biology is consistent with science in the sense that there exists people called scientists in biology that do experiments utilizing the scientific method.

In math everything is purely theoretical conjecture. No hypothesizes, no testing, no observation, just derivations of theorems from axioms. Same with "Computer Science" it's all logic games.

That's why mathematicians are not known as scientists. For computing, I believe the term "computer science" was likely mistakenly coined by someone who didn't know the full extent of the word "science."

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#52

Post by db48x » Sun, May 30, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

reifyx wrote: post #14

teleforce wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy nor Roman nor it's an Empire.

There's this old picture from a 1986 MIT lecture: https://miro.medium.com/max/4448/1*-yaqXNO1tUwVkUpyOqTT7Q@2x... .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&t=15s

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#53

Post by jhanschoo » Sun, May 30, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

panarky wrote: post #15

Dijkstra hand-wrote a paper titled "On the cruelty of really teaching computer science" where he argues that we should think about CS more as pure reasoning like mathematics than something tied to a machine. https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd10xx/EWD1036.PDF

Whenever this comes up I feel compelled to say that Dijkstra has a huge blind spot with this, that perhaps is more obvious with decades of hindsight. He advocates formal proof for a functional specification of a program to be part and parcel of writing it, and note that what he refers to by formal proof is ambiguous.

If he means the informal proofs mathematicians write and publish all day long, these actually include a lot of handwaving, metaphors, generalizations, and leaps of logic that the reader is presumed to be expert enough to fill-in-the-blanks. So for example, Wiles had a non-trivial bug in his proof of Fermat's last theorem that was thankfully non-fatal and fixable.

On the other hand, if Dijkstra was referring to formal proof, then without a proof assistant one still easily makes mistakes in it, and even with a proof assistant the task is so immensely tedious even now that even mathematicians don't do it, so why would programmers of non-safety-critical apps?[1] And another blind spot is that no formal proof will help you if your specification is wrong, and only give you false confidence: you can't navigate the world without errors if the only geometry you know is Euclidean.

[1]: of course, note that many people are trying to develop good enough proof assistants that mathematicians would feel add more value than remove via tedium. And also note that formal methods are being employed when the stakes are high enough; e.g. formal verification is performed on processor circuits.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#54

Post by neonological » Sun, May 30, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

adrusi wrote: post #41

neonological wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the inconsistency still exists regardless of the historical etymology. Math is not a science. A mathematician is Not a scientist. Why is computing a science?

Well I'm not sure when the common usage of "science" changed, but it's possible that when "computer science" was coined in the 1950s [1], the older usage was still at least widely understood. Perhaps given the present day importance of the discipline that's stuck with an outdated name, we can return the the older usage which is IMO better. [1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=computer+scien...

I'm curious how did mathematics miss out on the word "science." The meaning of the word "scientist" is consistent with how it's not ascribed to a mathematician as mathematicians don't do anything related to the scientific method.

The thing is you stated that around this time the term "science" was more broad and just meant acquiring knowledge... how come "science" wasn't applied to mathematicians? Technically, according to what you stated, the definition was broad enough to apply to mathematicians.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#55

Post by benrbray » Sun, May 30, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

iratewizard wrote: post #26

benrbray wrote: post #11

For my entire time as an undergraduate, the large top-ten research university I attended offered no courses in programming language theory, nor were these topics woven into the computing curriculum at large. (actually, there may have been a handful of graduate courses, but undergrads were strictly prohibited from joining -- there was a mandatory theory of computation class required for all CS majors, but the topics v…

I personally feel the pain of this when trying to hire someone who understands core concepts in PL theory and can help maintain a framework. It's also not the sort of thing I can teach to my Sr devs on the job in under a year when they've never even touched anything like forth or lisp, or even tried to write a parser by hand.

I feel an analogous pain on the flip side of interviewing! I would kill for a job that lets me exercise some of these skills, rather than the brain rot of a typical software job which doesn't demand that one thinks too deeply about things.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#56

Post by sum1datduznot » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

divbzero wrote: post #39

benrbray wrote: post #11

For my entire time as an undergraduate, the large top-ten research university I attended offered no courses in programming language theory, nor were these topics woven into the computing curriculum at large. (actually, there may have been a handful of graduate courses, but undergrads were strictly prohibited from joining -- there was a mandatory theory of computation class required for all CS majors, but the topics v…

What are the best ways to fill in those gaps? I bet many of us never enjoyed those classes in school, or even had a traditional computing education.

Reading the textbooks that people use in those classes is pretty helpful.

Dan Grossman has a great set of courses on Coursera, and a good number of resources are in those discussion boards.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#57

Post by huachimingo » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

neonological wrote: post #51

userbinator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose if we call it computer science, then perhaps all the other forms of science should really be called "reverse engineering" (especially biology.)

Biology is consistent with science in the sense that there exists people called scientists in biology that do experiments utilizing the scientific method. In math everything is purely theoretical conjecture. No hypothesizes, no testing, no observation, just derivations of theorems from axioms. Same with "Computer Science" it's all logic games. That's why mathematicians are not known as scientists. For computing, I be…

Modern math is more abstract.

Old math, like the one from primary school, was more inspired on physical phenomena and interactions with previous things.

We need more "clever guesses"(lets see what happens if A is B because C) and building up of theories in exercises. But that would not be rigourus...

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#58

Post by huachimingo » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

sum1datduznot wrote: post #24

Apocryphon wrote: post #21

"Computer science was a fraud. It always had been. It was the only branch of science ever named after a gadget. He and his colleagues were basically no better than gizmo freaks. Now physics, that was true science. Nobody ever called physics “lever science” or “billiard ball science.“ The fatal error in computer science was that it modeled complex systems without truly understanding them. Computers simulated complexit…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(job_description)

Interesting enough, being a Math theacher doesnt imply being a good calculator.

I saw this happen with my Math Teacher Hero and with common teachers.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#59

Post by arithma » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #33

Computer science is the mathematics behind counting. You count the number of "swap" operations in insertion sort, quicksort, or merge sort. You count the number of "memory" operations. You count the number of bytes used. When precise counts are difficult, you learn big-O notation to estimate how counts change as variable grow. Etc. etc. etc.

Computer science is much more like Mathematics than Physics. It feels wrong calling "computer science" a science, in the same sense of calling "Mathematics" science.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#60

Post by bmitc » Sun, May 30, 2021, 5:59 AM UTC

And calculus has nothing to do with pebbles or counting. So what?

Also, isn’t it easiest to think of a computer as an abstract concept that could both represent a physical device and the abstract computer? Computation needs a computer, whether real or abstract.

Lastly, I think science is the more “wrong” word in the name.