Why aren't we all speaking LISP now?

[Grant Edwards]

In article <slrn9fk32l.rbe.kzaragoza at kzaragoza.ne.mediaone.net>, Kris J. Zaragoza wrote:

>This may be an oversimplification; there are many different
>fields of study within Computer Science.  It does, however,
>describe the gist of things: Computer Science is a science.  

I would have to disagree.  CS is much more closely related to
math than to Science.  Most of the CS faculty I had when I was
in school had Math degrees.  The CS dept and the Math dept
offices were adjacent and shared facilities -- the Science
departments were on the other side of Campus.  Science is
trying to describe the physical Universe.  Math and CS are
completely artificial, mental constructs which are not
verifiable by comparing the predictions of theories with
physical experiments.

>Many people pursue a degree in CS thinking that it's the way to
>pick up some programming skills and land a cushy, high-paying
>job in the private sector.  Although the job (and the pay) is a
>possibility, a CS degree may not be the best way to get there.
>A more skill and tool based curriculum may be a better option
>(CIS? MIS? trade schools?).

There are Computer Engineering and Software Engineering
curricula at many schools.  If one is more interested in the
pracital design and construction of hardware/software systems,
then one of those should suit.  IOW, if you want to learn how
to be an engineer, one should perhaps major in Engineering. ;)
Though I must admit that most of the software engineering
classes I took were a waste of time.  The CS factulty that
taught SWE classes had never held a job outside academia and
had never shipped a single line of code. They had no grasp of
the practical problems inolved in software engineering.

I have a an MS in CS, but at no time have I ever been a
computer scientist, but have been a design engineer my entire
career.  Some of the things I studied in CS have helped me, but
many were quite unrelated to what it takes to design and
produce a product.

>I'm actually beginning to think that if more Computer Science
>were to trickle into other degree and technical training
>programs, we would see a significant increase in the quality of
>both hardware and software being produced today.
>
>Then again, I could be totally off my rocker. :-)

Nope -- There are many people with little CS background who end
up writing software and designing hardware -- just a few
undergrad CS classes would benefit many of them greatly.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm
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