5 ms·
>One of the ways to help make computer science respectable is to show that is deeply rooted in history, not just a short-lived phenomenon. Therefore it is natur
by max_ 6y ago
>One of the ways to help make computer science respectable is to show that is deeply rooted in history, not just a short-lived phenomenon. Therefore it is natural to turn to the earliest surviving documents which deal with computation, and to study how people approached the subject nearly 4000 years ago.
Interesting.
- User23 6y agoThis is why I prefer the term Computing Science. Naming the field after the tool is like calling astronomy Telescope Science.
- The_rationalist 6y agoI never thought about it, this is a great observation!
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoThis is actually a pretty funny fact that I think most, including myself, have never thought of.
- TravelPiglet 6y agoCS in Swedish is usually “data science” (datavetenskap). Some universities use “Department of Computing Science” as well as the English name.
- SilasX 6y agoDijkstra: "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." (Since nobody's said it explicitly and in case you were referencing it.) That is, telescopes are, in practice, the most common way to learn about stars(/celstial bodies), but the stars are the target of study, with telescopes an incidental tool. Computer science is about e.g. resource scaling for solving particular problems, with electronic computers just being one way those insights can be applied.
- cambalache 6y agoThat Dijkstra's phrase is genius because at first sight it just seems a pedantic point made by the professor, a_boutade_ if you will, but the more you think about it the truer it is, even obvious.
- yesenadam 6y agoAbelson makes this point in the opening seconds of his 1986 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs course. Lecture 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA He explains that Computer Science is a terrible name – it's not a science, and "not about computers in the same sense that physics is not really about particle accelerators, and biology is not really about microscopes and petri dishes".
- simonh 6y agoComputer isn’t just the device though, it’s the activity. Before electronic computers, computer was a job, people were hired to be computers so it’s more like calling astronomy “Astronomer Science”. Still awkward, but not quite so silly.
- The_rationalist 6y agoIsn't that field that superset computer science called computational thinking? (which is quite equivalent to semi-formal applied problem solving)