bormanp (05/12/82)
All this talk about CS not the same as math. Granted, in CS
you do not go out and try to prove the fundamentals of number
theory, or try and find new forms of set theory. On the other
side, in math you don't sit down and work on applications all day
long. But THEY DO HAVE THE SAME IDEA IN MIND, namely, you got a
problem, you got some tools, and now you got to solve it.
In math these tools are axioms, theorems, and what not. In
CS they are programming languages (some good, some bad). Just as
in math, you can copy someone else to get the job done, in CS you
can use somebody else's program to figure out your problem.
Nothing wrong with this, but is that math or programming? If you
say it is, I would disagree with you.
All you out there who boast that you are an idiot (in math)
but yet can write a compiler did one of two things. One, you
basically took somebody else's design and made it work for your
purposes (not much programming skill I would say). Or two, you
don't know yourself and you are not an idiot, instead you are a
sound logical thinking person. You used the same thought process
a math person uses to solve his problem. You might not have been
formally taught math, but that is not needed to think mathemati-
cally. Math is a way of thinking, not a series of courses
taught.
So say that CS is not math, but then don't write any pro-
grams that haven't already been written (least you use that grey
matter that resides between your ears), for if you do, like it or
not, you have done some mathematical thinking.
Paul R. Borman
St. Olaf College
...!ihnss!ihps3!stolaf!bormanp