Sunday, June 12, 2005

 

Why did CS defect?

In my previous post I included computer scientists in my discussion of specialization and the postmodern engineer. Doing so reminded me that one of my pet peeves over many years has been that the field of computer science chose to call itself "computer science" and not use a term that included the term "engineering."

There is no proper argument that computer science is one. Science is largely descriptive: it works primarily on describing that that is. Engineering is primarily prescriptive: it says what should be built and how things should be done. Without the invention of an engineered object, the computer, so-called computer science would have nothing to describe, and computer science's past has been a glorious history of continual improvement, engineering, and invention of some of the most powerful technological artifacts known to man.

None of this says, of course, that science is not used in computer science toward its primary mission of creating better computer systems, and none of this says that computer scientists don't contribute to science through their descriptive efforts, but other disciplines of engineering also use and contribute to science in a similar ways. So why did computer science "defect" from the other engineering disciplines and choose to ally itself nominally with the sciences?

History and prestige give much of the answer. Computer science arose in the aftermath of World War II and the success of the glory projects, the atomic bomb and radar, were largely attributed to the science involved. A more careful reading of history (see this) suggests that the success of the glory project required a good bit of formal and informal engineeirng acumen. Moreover, a better understanding of the Allied victory, generally, would credit engineering as part of a larger production dynamo that produced materiel for the war effort more rapidly and in larger quantities than had ever before been seen. Such nuance is largely lost to the larger culture, however, and the postwar zeitgeist raised the prestige of science. That CS chose to call itself a science can be understood in that milieu even if the name is inaccurate.

Unfortunately, the harm caused by this choice is not restricted to sloppy speech. What a field chooses to call itself matters. For example, the training of CS graduates teaches them "theory" as some sort of pristine exercise in proper mathematics as opposed to teaching model building as something that is integral to proper engineering. As a result, CS majors tend to treat theory as something divorced from the engineering of systems in a manner not seen in disciplines that choose to call their practitioners "engineers." My campaign for little models is largely an effort to counteract the imbalance in the theory education of computer scientists.

Card carrying computer scientists have recognized these problems. For example, Peter Denning's famous article Educating a New Engineer (here, ACM access required) chose the term "engineer" in making a case for change in educating the CS major of the future, and he created what he called the Center for the New Engineer to promulgate that vision. The selection of the term "engineer" was not an accident, and part of the point was to correct the errors of a CS past in which science was overvalued above the primary prescriptive mission of the discipline.

CS is the most recent discipline of engineering to be created, but it probably won't be the last. Let us hope that the next one that comes along has the wisdom and courage to choose a more accurate name.

Comments:
Computer Science is not engineering. Computer science people don't have to deal with engineering-type constraints.
 
Au contraire, my argument was exactly that CS is engineering, and saying that "computer science people don't have to deal with engineering-type constraints" does nothing to answer my fundamental argument. Does CS deal with prescription primarily, and does it traffic in description largely in support of prescription? Yes or no? If yes, then why does CS emphasize the S to the exclusion of the E. Indeed some departments call themselves CSE, but they are in the minority.

What do most practitioners of CS do? Do they engage in the pursuit of new knowledge, or do they help create new systems--do they engineer new systems--for profit or higher purpose? Academic CS types (like academic engineering types) may work on the creation onf new knowledge, but in practice working CS types, like working engineering types, design, implement, test, and operate systems of various sorts, and as such, both engineers and CSers face "engineering-type constraints."
 
In regard to the statement that " Computer Science is not engineering" I would agree, but I definitely think that science and engineering are strongly "coupled".

I think the boundaries between engineering and science are naturally fuzzy. This, of course, is also valid between computer science and engineering: CS advances may trigger advances in computer engineering and viceversa; and Engineers may wind-up contributing to "science" while engineering things, as well as "scientist" may wind-up "producing" "engineering stuff" on their path to "describing the world".

Social "scientists" are aware of this phenomenum. Particularly, there is a very interesting discussion on these issues in the work of Peter Galison . I do recommend the book: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, in which Galison presents the role of Einstein's work in the "coordination of clocks at train stations" (clearly engineering stuff) and its profound relationship to the theory of relativity (clearly science stuff).
 
You can agree with one another all you want, but that doesn't constitute a reasoned argument against the point of view my post espoused.

My critique is deeper than either comment maker has understood. Both comments take the term "computer science" and use it to define what computer scientists do.

Von Karman put the science/engineering difference nicely when he said, "Scientists discover the world that exists; engineers create the world that never was." I am arguing that the field of computer science and computer scientists generally are in the business of creating "the world that never was." The object of their study are artifacts as artificial (and engineered) as the world has ever seen.

You may choose to call your field "science" and yourself a "scientist," but that does not mean the description is apt or accurate. And it doesn't answer the question as to why CS chose S and not E.
 
I tend to agree with Dr. Goldberg's perspective, but I think that there are further distinctions that are necessary. Since my predisposition is in the software side of these disciplines, I'm unlikely to formulate an informed opinion on the entire topic.

By day, I earn my living as a software engineer. I spend my time constructing software for my clients. I practice engineering disciplines to varying degrees in this process. I apply science in this process. But as an engineer, it is my job to ship software, period. I may think of myself as one who practices computer science, but I am in the practice of engineering. After hours, I perform research in mathematics and computer science. I may engineer software and simulations to support my hypotheses, but I'm practicing science.

I'm going to use the benefits of a GA to describe what I believe to observe.

The human genotype emits knowledge of computing. To varying degrees, a necessary multi-objective fitness function is needed to determine the effectiveness of these emissions. As part of the fitness function, the individual must declare their practice, i.e. science or engineering (let's not allow a continuous function for a moment). The function, based on this answer, will provide for the presentation of the appropriate fitness measure. If an individual declares "science" and performs poorly, the GA handles the consequences. If the individual answers "engineering" and performs poorly, ditto. If science is the discovery of that that is, then there will be fewer of these individuals as many will eventually fail this test. Those that declare engineering and perform well continue; those that don't become a marketing genotype or some other discipline. In the state of the human population, i.e. steady state, non-destructive replacement, with unrestricted population size, those that declare and emit correctly, continue.

I'd summarize as follows. I think that we are in the early stages of the phylogeny of computing. I'd argue that we are in the first decile of the generations of this evolution. If I consider the individuals and their ability to develop their "computing emissions", I'd argue that few actually participate in the act of scientific emissions. This makes Dr. Goldberg's point. However, because to a large extent the fitness function has not distinguished this distinction, a high score is improperly granted to many in the population. In computing today, the definition of the fitness function for computing emissions is not mature.

Dr. Goldberg missed a golden opportunity here, so I'll state the obvious: In the computing disciplines, the term "science" has hitchhiked long enough.

---O
 
Well, I hope to add some enlightment to the question. I will not explain my ideas with a "long" text, but, what I will use is, just, two URL's. :D

This is Modern Computer Science and this is (a branch of) Computer Engineering.

I really disagree when Dr. Goldberg said that "Without the invention of an engineered object, the computer, so-called computer science would have nothing to describe". I think that the major subject of Computer Science is not the computer, the silicon machine, but, yes, the Computation. The questions from the Computation field can be as "What is and is not computable ?" or "What are the limits of a Computing machine ?". I say this, because there were other types of computers in the past (Gears From Greeks, Abacus, Pascaline and The Differencial Engine) and those computers were not built by Scientists (at that time they even did not have a Theory of Computation). The only Computer/Computation/Computing Scientist that I really think is a Scientist, was Alan Turing, but, at this point, you could say: "Hey, but Alan Turing was a Mathematician!!". There are some critics to decide if Mathematics is or is not a Science (Gauss called Math as "The Queen of all Sciences"). Well, I would consider, too, as a Computer/Computation/Computing Scientists other two guys: Donald Knuth and J. Gregory Chaitin. The more suitable word to use would be Computing/Computation Scientist, without the word "Computer" (because they, the Computation/Computing Scientists, do not study the computer, the machine, but, yes, what it does in practice: Computations). But, what are the reasons to use the word "Science/Scientist" ? Well, the major reason could be that a Computing/Computation/(Computer) Scientist studies the fundamental gear of computers: Computations. Computation can be studied without the use of a computer, a physical machine, but can be studied only using Theory of Computation. Now, I ask you a question: Why are the reasons to use the word "Computer" in "Computer Science", if the major part of CS courses do not pay too much attention to electronics and circuitry ?

The word "Computer" is/(could be) allowed to stay beside the term "Science", maybe, because of the way that the modern computing was created: it was not an isolated subject, but it took some concepts and ideas from other fields, for example, the Information Theory (Claude Shanon) and Mathematics (Turing, Gödel). But, the use of the first Computing Machines could enlight our minds to find an answer: The World War II was the first war to use a computing machine to help the Allied in some tasks (for example, to know if a nuclear bomb explosion could ignitate all the atmosphere). But, I have a better argument to the problem: The word "Computer" is used so far, because the most immediate product from the Modern Computation field was, at the beginning, the computers (ENIAC, UNIVAC, Colossus). It is the same situation when somebody says "I want a Big Mac" to say that he/she wants a hamburger. You substitute the product for the trademark and we do the same when we say "I'm or /He/She is a Computer Scientist!".

Até Mais!!

Marcelo (a.k.a Nosophorus)
 
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