colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (10/14/85)
> That brings up my biggest complaint against undergraduate computer science > educations is that they teach you "programming"... they teach you how to edit > a file under VMS... they teach you how to write in assembly language... > they teach you what a barrel shifter is... they teach (etc.), but they > don't require any theory classes. > > They don't require a class on design and analysis of algorithms. They > don't teach the thoery of LALR parsers, they don't teach... One trouble with theory in computer science is that it doesn't last. I'd estimate that half the theoretical work that's been done in computer science is obsolete. And another trouble is that theory has not contributed much to computer science; it almost always comes after practice. Had Algol and Pascal been failures, theory would have quietly buried the corpses. -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: csdsicher@sunyabva
peter@yetti.UUCP (Runge) (10/20/85)
> One trouble with theory in computer science is that it doesn't last. I'd > estimate that half the theoretical work that's been done in computer science > is obsolete. > > And another trouble is that theory has not contributed much to computer > science; it almost always comes after practice. Had Algol and Pascal > been failures, theory would have quietly buried the corpses. > -- > Col. G. L. Sicherman It's nice to see that one can still find entertaining portions of pure balderdash on the net! Colonel, it is not the role of theory to "last"; it is to criticize and be criticized and pass away to be replaced by something better. Had a look at the history of Western science lately? Even in purely deductive aspects of mathematics, theories mature, flourish, and fade into oblivion, as tastes change and new problems are "discovered" (invented). As for being "obsolete" (i. e. superseded by something more effective?), if only half of CS falls into that category, it's doing rather well -- certainly better than the computer industry where it seems 90-95% of the tools, products, methods, and concepts being routinely applied are obsolete. Compare the "thought" pieces in Computerworld with say, IEEE Computer, to see what I mean. And then there are those "failures" Algol, and Pascal! What exactly did they fail at? As far as I know, both languages succeeded in large part in meeting the goals of their designers and beyond. Finally, there is that curious lag between practise and theory in CS -- the theory comes in after the idea is developed in practise? Even if it were true in a significant number of instances, that would hardly mean the theory was irrelevant -- often informal notions worked out in special cases benefit from a rigorous analysis and generalization: compare arithmetic expressions in Fortran and functional evaluation in APL or LISP. But actually, I doubt that the lag goes in that direction anyway, in CS. With a few notable exceptions (such as hash-coding), it seems that almost all the "good stuff" in computing evolved in theoretically-oriented research environments (often academic), i.e. out of the efforts of people involved in doing computer science. Ada! (and what ever happened to Jovial by the way?). and intellectual insights of DoD's great achievments in this area: Cobol exactly they failed, Colonel, *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** -- Peter H. Roosen-Runge, Department of Computer Science, York University Toronto M3J 1P3 , Ontario, Canada _____________________________________________________________________________ "Eccles, is the ship sinking?" "Only below the sea." "We must try to save the ship -- help me get it into the lifeboat." _____________________________________________________________________________
jma@duke.UUCP (Jon M. Allingham) (10/23/85)
>> That brings up my biggest complaint against undergraduate computer science >> educations is that they teach you "programming"... they teach you how to edit >> a file under VMS... they teach you how to write in assembly language... >> they teach you what a barrel shifter is... they teach (etc.), but they >> don't require any theory classes. > >> They don't require a class on design and analysis of algorithms. They >> don't teach the thoery of LALR parsers, they don't teach... Obviously you didn't research your subject very well, some Universities do teach these things. I received my BS in Information and Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1984. Over 50% of the required hours were in Computer Science and among other things they included a course in (1) Data Structures, including analysis of memory usage and algorithm speed (2) Theory of Computing (3) Analysis of Algorithms plus a smattering of formal logic scattered over many courses. Students were expected take 6 courses to make to areas of specialization which for me included a compiler's course that showed, among other things, how & why LALR parsing works. Since we were expected to program many of these things ( eg a 2500 line database query system, ~5000 line compiler, an OS etc, we had to know the particulars of the machines we used, but there was no real emphasis on how things are done on a particular machine. We did a lot more than this, these are just specific replies to your (mis-) statement. Also, it is not unreasonable to assume that if you learn the principles of compiler writing, OS systems, etc you can learn to do them on other systems besides the one you happened to use. >One trouble with theory in computer science is that it doesn't last. I'd >estimate that half the theoretical work that's been done in computer science >is obsolete. >And another trouble is that theory has not contributed much to computer >science; it almost always comes after practice. Had Algol and Pascal >been failures, theory would have quietly buried the corpses. Yes, but a lot of the theory is still fundamental and can be used to demonstrate lots of interesting things. I you can understand current 'theory' you have a better chance of understanding state-of-the-art theories. e.g. If you can learn the principles of Analysis of Algorithms for a range of current problems, you can probably apply what you know to new algorithms. Jon Allingham AT&T Bell Laboratories, (currently at Duke University)
herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) (10/27/85)
In article <260@yetti.UUCP> peter@yetti.UUCP (Runge) writes: >> And another trouble is that theory has not contributed much to computer >> science; it almost always comes after practice. Had Algol and Pascal >> been failures, theory would have quietly buried the corpses. >> -- >> Col. G. L. Sicherman > >And then there are those "failures" Algol, and Pascal! What exactly did they >fail at? As far as I know, both languages succeeded in large part in meeting >the goals of their designers and beyond. hmmm. i thought the Colonel said the opposite. Herb Chong... I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... New net address -- VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH UUCP: {allegra|cbosgd|cmcl2|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!philabs!polaris!herbie CSNET: herbie.yktvmh@ibm-sj.csnet ARPA: herbie.yktvmh.ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa