Boorstin,
Daniel J.
(1983),
The Discoverers
(New York: Random House), Ch. 49: "The Microscope of Nature":
- "The hero of this story, Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694),
was a great scientist whose work had no dogmatic unity.
He was one of the first of a new breed of explorers who defined their
mission neither by the doctrine of their master nor by the subject that
they studied. They were no longer "Aristotelians" or "Galenists."
Their eponym, their mechanical godparent, was some device that extended
their senses and widened their vistas. What gave his researches
coherence was a new instrument. Malpighi was to be a "microscopist,"
and his science was "microscopy," a word first noted in English in
Pepys' Diary in 1664. His scientific career was held together not by
what he was trying to confirm or to prove, but by the vehicle which
carried him on his voyages of observation." (p. 376.)
Of possibly related interest:
- McBride, Neil (2007),
"The Death of Computing".
-
Mander, Keith (2007),
"Demise of Computer Science Exaggerated"
Krantz, Steven G.
(1984),
Letter
to the Editor about the relation of computer science to mathematics,
American Mathematical Monthly
91(9) (November): 598-600.
Denning,
Peter J.
(1985),
"What Is Computer Science?"
[PDF],
American Scientist
73 (January-February): 16-19.
Abrahams, Paul
(1987),
"What Is Computer Science?",
Communications of the ACM
30(6) (June): 472-473.
Loui, Michael C.
(1987),
"Computer
Science Is an Engineering Discipline" [PDF]
Engineering Education.
Denning,
Peter J.;
Comer, Douglas E.;
Gries, David;
Mulder,
Michael C.;
Tucker, Allen;
Turner, A. Joe;
&
Young, Paul R.
(1989),
"Computing as a Discipline",
Communications of the ACM
32(1) (January): 9-23.
- "A Taxonomy of Subfields in CS&E:
- Algorithms and data structures
- Programming languages
- Computer architecture
- Numeric and symbolic computation
- Operating systems
- Software engineering
- Databases and information retrieval
- Artificial intelligence and robotics
- Human-computer interaction"
Bajcsy, Ruzena
K.;
Borodin, Allan B.;
Liskov, Barbara
H.;
&
Ullman, Jeffrey D.
(1992),
"Computer Science Statewide Review"
(unpublished report).
Hartmanis,
Juris,
&
Lin,
Herbert
(eds.?)
(1992),
"What Is Computer Science and Engineering?"
[PDF],
in
Juris Hartmanis & Herbert Lin (eds.),
Computing the Future:
A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering
(Washington, DC: National Academy Press), Ch. 6, pp. 163-216.
Abelson, Harold,
&
Sussman, Gerald
Jay,
with
Sussman, Julie
(1996),
Structure and Interpretation
of Computer Programs,
"Preface
to the First Edition":
- "Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction
that "computer science" is not a science and that its significance has
little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution in
the way we think and in the way we express what we think. The essence of
this change is the emergence of what might best be called procedural
epistemology -- the study of the structure of knowledge from an
imperative point of view, as opposed to the more declarative point of
view taken by classical mathematical subjects. Mathematics provides a
framework for dealing precisely with notions of "what is." Computation
provides a framework for dealing precisely with notions of "how to." "
Brooks, Frederick P., Jr.
(1996),
"The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith
II",
Communications of the ACM
39(3) (March): 61-68.
Gal-Ezer, Judith,
&
Harel, David
(1998),
"What (Else) Should CS Educators Know?",
Communications of the ACM
41(9) (September): 77-84.
- Contains a section titled "What is CS?".
- Contains a "Bibliography for `What is CS?'"
- Also contains the following quotes:
- "Computer science has such intimate relations with so
many other subjects that it is hard to see it as a thing
in itself." --
Marvin Minsky
- "Computer science differs from the known sciences so
deeply that it has to be viewed as a new species among
the sciences." --
Juris
Hartmanis
Parnas, David Lorge
(1998),
"Software Engineering Programmes
are not
Computer Science Programmes",
Annals of Software Engineering.
Denning, Peter J.
(1999),
"Computer Science: The Discipline",
in Anthony Ralston & David Hemmindinger (eds.) (2000),
Encyclopedia of Computer Science.
Jacob, Christian
(1999),
"What Is Computer Science?" [PDF]
Shagrir,
Oron
(1999),
"What Is Computer Science About?" [PDF],
The Monist
82(1): 131-149.
Computer Science and Telecommunications
Board (2001),
"Fundamentals
of Computer Science: Symposium" (conference program)
Johnson, George
(2001),
"All
Science Is Computer Science",
The New York Times
(25 March): WK1, WK5.
Shapiro, Stuart C.
(2001),
"Computer
Science: The Study of Procedures" [PDF]
- Note: There is also an earlier, slightly different version, apparently no longer on
line:
Shapiro, Stuart C. (1997), "What Is Computer Science?".
- Also see his website
"Computer Science"
Foley,
Jim
(2002),
"Computing
> Computer Science".
- Revised version of paper that appeared in Computing Research
News 14(4) (September) (2002): 6.
Boston University
Department of Computer Science
(2003),
"What Is Computer
Science?" [PDF]
IEEE/ACM Computing Curricula Series, including:
-
Computer Science Volume (CC2001) [240-page PDF]
-
Computing Curricula 2005: The Overview Report [62-page PDF]
Denning, Peter J.
(2005),
"Is Computer Science Science?",
Communications of the ACM
48(4) (April): 27-31.
Parlante, Nick (2005),
"What Is Computer Science?",
InroadsThe SIGCSE Bulletin
37(2) (June): 24-25.
Anthes, Gary (2006),
"Computer Science Looks for a Remake",
Computerworld
(1 May).
Two quotes from Bernard Chazelle, Prof. of CS, Princeton:
- "CS is the new "new math," and people are beginning to
realize that CS, like math, is unique in the sense that many other
disciplineswill have to adopt that way of thinking. It offers a sort of
conceptual framework for other disciplines, and that's fairly new."
- "We're at the tail end of Moore's Law....But this will be
the best thing that can happen to CS. Moore's Law has been tremendously
beneficial to society. At the same time, it's been so damn powerful
that it has set back the development of algorithms. But that's about to
change. Any student interested in science and technology needs to learn
to think algorithmically. That's the next big thing."
- See also:
Chazelle, Bernard (2006),
"The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science"
Wing, Jeannette M.
(2006),
"Computational Thinking",
Communications of the ACM
49(3) (March): 33-35.
[PDF]
Easton, Thomas A.
(2006),
"Beyond the Algorithmization of the Sciences",
Communications of the ACM
49(5) (May): 31-33.
Naur, Peter
(2007),
"Computing Versus Human Thinking",
Communications of the ACM
50(1) (January): 85-94.
Tedre, Matti
(2007),
"The Philosophy of Computer Science (Winter-Spring 2007)"
Department of Computing Sciences,
Elon University, Elon, NC (retrieved 2/12/2007),
"What Is Computer Science?"
- This is from the departmental website of a small college's
"computing sciences" (note the name!) department. It discusses
pretty much all the issues we've been looking at: Is it a
science? What does it study? Is it an engineering discipline?
Summary