Slashdot Mirror
Donald Knuth Worried About the "Dumbing Down" of Computer Science History
An anonymous reader writes: Thomas Haigh, writing for Communications of the ACM, has an in-depth column about Donald Knuth and the history of computer science. It's centered on a video of Knuth giving a lecture at Stanford earlier this year, in which he sadly recounts how we're doing a poor job of capturing the development of computer science, which obscures vital experience in discovering new concepts and overcoming new obstacles. Haigh disagrees with Knuth, and explains why: "Distinguished computer scientists are prone to blur their own discipline, and in particular few dozen elite programs, with the much broader field of computing. The tools and ideas produced by computer scientists underpin all areas of IT and make possible the work carried out by network technicians, business analysts, help desk workers, and Excel programmers. That does not make those workers computer scientists. ... Computing is much bigger than computer science, and so the history of computing is much bigger than the history of computer science. Yet Knuth treated Campbell-Kelly's book on the business history of the software industry (accurately subtitled 'a history of the software industry') and all the rest of the history of computing as part of 'the history of computer science.'"
When you find yourself disagreeing like this to Don Knuth, of all people, and essentially calling him a myopic old coot, for reals nigga you better check yourself. The article doesn't even try to make a counterargument to itself.
One of the problems this causes is the lack of appreciation for the mathematics that defines computer science, and computers.
The end result is politicians making stupid laws and judges making stupid rulings...
With stupid patents on software being the stupid result.
And bad laws stifle freedom.
I returned to college several years ago after a 20 year hiatus (the first 6 years were my creative period). My first time around I studied what might be called pure Computer Science. A lot has happened in the industry after 20 years and I very much enjoyed conversations in class - esp with the perspective of the younger generation. I found it fascinating how many kids of today hoped to enter the gaming industry (my generation - Zork was popular when I was a kid and Myst was a breakout success on a new level). Kids today see blockbuster gaming as an almost make it rich experience - plus a "real world" job that sounds like fun.
But more interesting was the concepts of Computer Engineering vs Computer Science. What is Science vs Engineering? Are software "engineers" really scientists? Do they need to learn all this sciencey stuff in order to enter the business school? I attended a large semi-well-known University. Back in the '80s the CS department was "owned" by the school of business. Programming computers was thought to be the money maker - only business really used them with a strong overlap into engineering because computers were really big calculators. However it was a real CS curriculum with only 1 class for business majors. Fast forward a dozen years and CS is now part of the Engineering school (with Business on its own). The "kids" wondered why they needed to study Knuth et al when they were just going to be programming games. What about art? Story telling? They planned on using visual creative studio tools to create their works. Why all this science stuff? (this in a haptics class). Should a poet learn algorithms in order to operate MS-Word?
Since computers are ubiquitous they are used everywhere. I tell students to get a degree in what interests them - and learn how to use/program computers because...well..who doesn't use a computer? I used to program my TI calculator in highschool to pump out answers to physics & algebra questions (basic formulas).
Are those who program Excel Macros computer scientists? No. Computer Engineers? no. Business people solving real problems? Yes/maybe. The land is now wider. Many people don't care about the details of landing a man on the moon - but they like it when the velcro strap on their shoes holds properly. They receive entertainment via the Discovery Channel and get the dumbed down edition of all things "science."
When creating entertainment - it needs to be relatable to your target audience. The down and dirty details and technicalities interest only a few of us. My wife's eyes glaze over when I talk about some cool thing I'm working on. Retell it as saving the world and improving quality - she gets it (only to politely say I should go play with the kids -- but at least she was listening to that version of events).
I think that the dumbing down of history is ... well.. history. There was this thing called World War 2. The details I learned in grade school - lots of details. Each battle, names of important individuals. Today - lots of history has happened in the meantime. WW2 is now a bit dumbed down - still an important subject - but students still only have 8 grades in school with more material to cover.
My brain melts when I watch the Discovery Channel. I'm probably not the target audience. The details of historical science probably interest me. The history of Computing needs to be told like "The Social Network."
Well, sort of. If you replace "NASA" by "MIT", "invented" by "vastly improved", and "computers" by "embedded systems", then you're right. :-)
Ezekiel 23:20
we've raised at least two generations of self obsessed, no attention-span kids who want instant gratification. Retards like Justin Bieber who today tweets that he bought a new plane. As the later generations grow into the workforce and into fields like journalism, history and computer science it's no small wonder they want to reduce everything down to one liners or soundbites. Pick your field because these kids started with censored cartoons and wound up with Sponge Bob. Shit, even the news is now brokered into short paragraphs that just say "this shit happened now onto the next.."
Screw that! Yeah I'm getting older so get the fuck off my lawn!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I see the posthumous reactions to Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie as indicators that Knuth is absolutely right. Jobs, who was essentially just a marketing asshole, gets every manner of fanfare commemorating his "world-changing" achievements. Ritchie on the other hand is almost completely ignored in the media, even though he is one of the giants upon whose shoulders Jobs undeservingly stood.
I bet anyone here would agree that co-authoring UNIX is a far more important event than being the iPod/iPhone taskmaster.
The physics does NOT define Computer Science. Computer Science has nothing that depends on transistors, or tubes, or levers and gears.
Computers can be designed and built, and computing performed, at many different levels of physical abstraction.
You can do computer science all on paper for fucks sake.
Ever heard of this guy called Alan Turing?
Knuth is right, the ignorance, even among technical people, is astounding
Even worse. I have seen both hierarchical and network databases re-invented.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+