Why aren't we all speaking LISP now?

[Darren New]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> I would have to disagree.  CS is much more closely related to
> math than to Science. 

It's actually a combination of math and engineering and science, IMHO.

It's math with a limit on the size of sets and numbers of alphabets you
can have. The truly "theoretical computer science" falls under "what can
we do with an infinite-size infinite-speed computer." That nobody has
built such a beast is what adds the engineering to the comp sci.

The other point to note is that computer science has a lot to do with
people as well as math. So studying how people interact with computers,
for example, in order to improve your GUI, is quite a lot like science.
We'd all be programming turing machines if there wasn't any real-world
science going on. I mean, what's the mathematical basis of preferring
object-oriented programming over procedural?

And of course there's the whole field of "AI", whatever's included there
this year. Much of the linguistics going on there is done as science
rather than math.

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
       Invasion in chinese restaurant:
                        ALL YOUR RICE ARE BELONG TO US!