From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: kaz@vision.crest.nt.com (Kaz Kylheku) Subject: Re: Any research putting c above ada? Date: 1997/05/20 Message-ID: <5lsjb3$bqc@bcrkh13.bnr.ca>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 242631280 References: Organization: Prism Systems Inc. Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Michael Norrish wrote: >jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony) writes: > >> > Where else is the theory of communicating processes (things like CSP >> > and CCS by Hoare and Milner respectively) going to live except in >> > computer science? > >> Engineering again. Other than how this works in actual software >> systems, who cares? > >Theoretical computer scientists, that's who. Show me an engineering >department that cares in the slightest about the pi calculus. I, on >the other hand can show you an entire research group at the Computer >Lab here that does. > >At a stretch you could call some of this stuff mathematics (it's >abstract in the way that much of maths is abstract), but when push >comes to shove, mathematicians don't do it; they're not interested. >Theoretical computer science is perhaps even a branch of mathematics, >but that doesn't mean maths departments do it. I would go as far as saying that ``software engineering'' is a hoax. Developing a correct program is much more akin to theorem proving than engineering activity. There are enough superficial similarities to make the two seem the same from a project management perspective. Both the ``software engineer'' and the real engineer have to have some creativity, both have requirements and deadlines, both work in teams, both assemble systems out of more elementary components many of which are designed and built by others and so forth. Their fundamental activities are miles apart, however. Software engineering merely means the application of the same levels of rigor to software design that engineers apply to the design of electrical, mechanical or structural systems, and the same standards of quality, accountability and so forth. >From this it does not follow that we should absorb computer science into engineering. Phooey!