Python's Lisp heritage

[Tim Daneliuk]

Carl Banks wrote:

<SNIP>

> Computer programming is not science.

Agreed - it is craft.

> The study of algorithms, their properties, etc., is science.

Disagree - it is Mathematics.  Science, almost by definition, involves
hypothesis, experiment, and analysis of a sort almost never done in
algorithmics, complexity theory, or combinatorics.

Even in the more abstruse corners of modern science, like Physics, while
the majority of the work is almost entirely theoretical, there is still
the underlying belief in the importance of empirical verification.

I realize this all is splitting hairs to some degree because it is essentially
impossible to decouple mathematics from science at this point in human
history, but this still does not mean they are one and the same thing.

So, in my view, programming is *craft* but might someday become an
*engineering discipline* (very doubtful IMHO), thinking about how programs
work is *mathematics*, and the only when computers are applied for some
empirical purpose can we really call what they do *science*.  

Then again, its much easier to mooch grant money if you call something 
"science", I guess...

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Tim Daneliuk
tundra at tundraware.com