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“Computer science is not about computers”

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Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#221

Post by dalbasal »

seoaeu wrote: post #213
dalbasal wrote: post #114

I've come to believe that ideas/statements such as these are crucial, but neither true nor false. They're a perspective lens. Ideally, we should be able to slip in and out of such perspective lenses. A contradictory statement could be equally true/useful, even (especially?) if held simultaneously. Avoiding computer science directly... Geophysics is a "telescope science." A typical geophysicist sees themselves as expe…

The reverse statement would probably be something like "The core pursuit of computer science is how to best design and harness computers" . Which is a reasonably accurate description of many areas within CS including machine learning, distributed systems, programming languages, and computer architecture.

Well stated.

That would be leaning in to the "telescope science" analogy.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#222

Post by FabHK »

Tangential, but QuoteInvestigator is a great website, and quite entertaining. Many famous quotes are not from the people they're usually attributed to.

Examples:

"I Have Never Killed Any One, But I Have Read Some Obituary Notices with Great Satisfaction" (Darrow, not Twain, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/05/darrow-obituary/)

"When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?" (maybe not Keynes, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/22/keynes-change-mind/)

"A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes" (neither Twain nor Churchill, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/)

"Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid" (not Einstein... https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/)

"I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" (not Voltaire, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/)

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#223

Post by criddell »

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

One of my favorite professors started the year by telling us that the only equipment we need to work on computer science problems is a pencil and some paper.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#224

Post by codesections »

kaba0 wrote: post #209
logicchains wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also applies to interviewing. Google for instance generally doesn't include anything PL theory related in their interviews, even though it would often be more relevant to the work than random dynamic programming problems. As a result of this they produced languages and frameworks like Go, Dart, Angular and Tensorflow, which display ignorance if not outright contempt for modern programming language theory. This l…

I really dislike Go, but its creator(s) is more than familiar with language theory, and it is absurd to say otherwise.

I didn't read the GP as making a statement about the _creators_ of Go, but rather about its target users. And Go is explicitly targeted at "Programmers working at Google [who usually] are early in their careers and are most familiar with procedural languages, particularly from the C family."[0] If Google's interviews gateted on the sort of programming language questions the GP mentioned, then Go's target users would have been very different, and Go would likely be a different (better? Worse?) language.

[0]:https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#225

Post by panarky »

jhanschoo wrote: post #53
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…

There's a lot more in that paper than an argument for formal proofs. In fact, formal proofs are more of an incidental idea than the main point of Dijkstra's argument.

For example, he suggests that we need to understand computer science as a "radical novelty" and stop applying inapt analogies that come from thinking about this like a gradual evolution of mechanical things.

Inapt mechanical metaphors include software "tools" and "workbenches" that require "maintenance". Getting stuck with bad industrial analogies is "medieval thinking" that prevents real understanding.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#228

Post by noisy_boy »

xyzelement wrote: post #179

CS is a way of thinking about how to solve things, with regards to efficiency of solution. Example: my wife likes to put gym shorts and shirts in different drawers. To my CS mind that doubles the seek time of a retrieval. The little bowl by the door is a cache of my most recently used stuff. People who nearly file their papers (eg bills) nearly are optimizing for retrieval efficiency - of an operation that is actuall…

> People who nearly file their papers (eg bills) nearly are optimizing for retrieval efficiency - of an operation that is actually very rare.

It maybe rare but that fact doesn't capture the probability that the importance of retrieval could be disproportionately high - when you really need that bill, you definitely want it and want it quick.

Re: “Computer science is not about computers”

#230

Post by unknown_apostle »

js8 wrote: post #73

My view is quite unconventional, but I believe, computer science is a branch of mathematics that deals with large but finite structures (so they need an algorithmic description). Compare with most of "legacy" mathematics, which studies countable structures (so the description can use arbitrary series). Of course, there are larger sets, but they mostly serve as a theater (just like countable infinity is just a theater…

Working with coinduction. So that’s not a good definition :-)
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