51–60 of 110 posts
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Of course CS is a (formal) science.
Is it though? It can certainly be formal. But so is logic, so is mathemetics. I am not sure there is a clear consensus if math is a science. I can go with engineering (but licensed engineers might object to that), art or craft perhaps.
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What part of computer science is experimentation?
I am tempted to write: "what part isn't?" Seriously, just about everything we do in computer science is experimentation, at least if it involves... physical computers . Every time we run a program, we run an experiment. At least if we have some expectation of what we want the program to do. Every time we write a test, or run a test suite, we are running an experiment. Every time we implement some sort of abstraction,…
CS is big-O, Chomsky hierarchy, finite automata, type theory, and computability classes. It's the study of algorithms & data structures, not their implementations. In other words, CS is a branch of math.
Programming is much more of a craft than it is either an art or a science. Good craftsmanship combines beauty with utility, as does good coding. Programmers work with abstractions, rather than with wood or clay. And their craft is as cerebral and intellectually demanding as an art or a science. But it's still a craft.
Programming is art for many of us. For some it's a craft. If you are original and independent thinker in our profession, have creative ideas nobody had prior to you, you are much closer to an artist. If you just reuse what somebody else created, you are closer to a craftsman. Where do you stand?
Programming is much more of a craft than it is either an art or a science. Good craftsmanship combines beauty with utility, as does good coding. Programmers work with abstractions, rather than with wood or clay. And their craft is as cerebral and intellectually demanding as an art or a science. But it's still a craft.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am tempted to write: "what part isn't?" Seriously, just about everything we do in computer science is experimentation, at least if it involves... physical computers . Every time we run a program, we run an experiment. At least if we have some expectation of what we want the program to do. Every time we write a test, or run a test suite, we are running an experiment. Every time we implement some sort of abstraction,…
You're describing software engineering, not computer science. CS is big-O, Chomsky hierarchy, finite automata, type theory, and computability classes. It's the study of algorithms & data structures, not their implementations. In other words, CS is a branch of math.
Theoretical computer science is a division or subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on more abstract or mathematical aspects of computing and includes the theory of computation.
So true. Robert Rodriguez filmed El Mariachi with almost no resources. It's why the demoscene produced - and still produces - such amazing creations within its self-imposed strict limits. It's one of the reasons why the Raspberry Pi is so popular and why you see the most beautiful ARM assembly on the Gameboy.
And conversely I think it's why Web development is collapsing under the weight of too many shiny things. It's lethargic and living in the lap of luxury. I watched a video the other day of AirBNB talking about the evolution of its Web site. The 2008 version was fine: Rails, a database and dynamic page output. The 2015 version was insane: Rails, React, Node, all sorts of dependencies, some stuff I'd never heard of but that the speaker assured was good, complex mobile optimization when you could instead, you know, just write lean and mean mobile-friendly HTML.
Limit yourself instead and see what happens - the results might just be awesome.
Programming is much more of a craft than it is either an art or a science. Good craftsmanship combines beauty with utility, as does good coding. Programmers work with abstractions, rather than with wood or clay. And their craft is as cerebral and intellectually demanding as an art or a science. But it's still a craft.
Michelangelo was working with chisel, colors, palette - was he a craftsman? How about guys that were replicating his work? They would have been closer to the 'craftmanship' side. Programming is art for many of us. For some it's a craft. If you are original and independent thinker in our profession, have creative ideas nobody had prior to you, you are much closer to an artist. If you just reuse what somebody else crea…
The difference being that we primarily create things valued for their utility, rather than their aesthetics. Video games being the possible exception, although even there the programmers are essentially building a vehicle for the art-stuff (story, graphics, gameplay, music) to shine through.
Programming is much more of a craft than it is either an art or a science. Good craftsmanship combines beauty with utility, as does good coding. Programmers work with abstractions, rather than with wood or clay. And their craft is as cerebral and intellectually demanding as an art or a science. But it's still a craft.
I agree, craft is much more appropriate. I think this is a confusing essay, because in everyday speech "art" is employed to mean something very different from "an art" and we get lost in semantics. The continued references to obsolete definitions confuse things further. In practice, the phrase "an art" is usually used in the same way as "an artform", as it is not meant to be taken literally; a commentator may say "th…
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Title now changed from "Paul Graham: Programming as Art" to Knuth:
OK, but why does PG host this? It's freely available: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=361612
"How did they develop their skill? The best film makers through the years usually seem to have learned their art in comparatively primitive circumstances, often in other countries with a limited movie industry. And in recent years the most important things we have been learning about programming seem to have originated with people who did not have access to very large computers. The moral of this story, it seems to m…