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Jane is an assistant professor in a computing field, and a new mother. Join her as she navigates the tenure track, deals with gender issues, figures out how to be a parent, and tries to have some semblance of a life.
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« Is computer science a science? (part 2: science) | Main | Out of balance »
I should probably provide a link to this poll....
Category: computer science
Posted on: April 3, 2008 11:24 PM, by Jane
Comments
I don't have a Computer Science degree, I do have a B.Sc in Information Science which I feel is more valuable.
Posted by: Tony P | April 4, 2008 2:01 AM
Well, Tony P, I'd say the value of your degree depends on what you want to do with it...
Posted by: Ginger Peach | April 4, 2008 6:17 PM
"I don't have a Computer Science degree, I do have a B.Sc in Information Science which I feel is more valuable."
To echo Ginger, it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | April 4, 2008 7:23 PM
We went through this debate in the early 70s at MIT. I remember one of the younger professors, I think Sussman, asking why we don't have toaster science. He had a point, but we do have toaster science, just as we have heat engine science. We call heat engine science thermodynamics.
While I voted no in the poll, there actually is computer science, but it is extremely limited in power, just as the study of grammar is extremely limited with regards to the things that we can do with language. If you understand thermodynamics, you still don't know how to build a heat engine. If you understand grammar, you still don't know how to tell a story or crack a joke. If you understand computer science, you still don't know how to write a program or develop a system.
What we call computer science today consists of a handful of mathematics comprising information and computation theory and a lot of alchemy. There is some chemistry in there, but an awful lot of phlogiston. Worse, there is an entire methodology industry that might better be called, anything but programming, selling a broad range of quack nostrums for the actual pressing problems of getting computers to do useful things.
Posted by: Kaleberg | April 5, 2008 3:02 PM
"If you understand computer science, you still don't know how to write a program or develop a system."
The pragmatics of any technological discipline are always somewhat divorced from the understanding of the science. Being a great physicist doesn't automatically make you a great engineer. That doesn't make physics "limited in power". The power of physics lies in its explanatory power, just as the power of theoretical computer science lies in its power to formalize and investigate the phenomenon of computation.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | April 5, 2008 6:58 PM
Just to clear up some potential confusion, "extremely" should be prefixed to "limited in power" above.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | April 5, 2008 7:00 PM
I have a BS in physics and a MS in Comp. Sci.
I tend to fall in the "not a science" camp, but I don't mean that as a slam. There are parts of CS that are mostly mathematics (automata, information theory, complexity, cryptography), parts that are more akin to engineering (software engineering, a lot hardware level stuff like processor design, even operating systems), and there are those disciplines that are used by other sciences (visualization, numerical modeling) and those like AI and machine learning that cross over into sciences like neurology, psychology, etc.
Certainly there are places where the scientific method is applied (say in AI, when you're trying to evaluate a genetic programming techique and use control and test groups, or doing statistical analyses of the artifacts created by the new audio codec), but that doesn't really make the discipline a science.
When I was a kid, a colleague of my parents (also both computer scientists) used to refer to himself as a "computist", since he noted that they weren't "physical scientists" and "chemical scientists", but physicists and chemists. I like his term--not because it makes us sound like "real scientists", but because it is less confusing. There are mathematicians and historians, and they get respect while not being "scientists".
Posted by: Mitch P. | April 7, 2008 5:38 PM