🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <OG73CU9@taronga.hackercorp.com> peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>alex@telecdn.uucp (Alex Laney) writes:
>> This is of course,  way out in left field...
>
>No, it's pretty reasonable actually.
>
>> I would like to put forth the proposal to rename the following newsgroups...
>
>> comp.cog-eng --> comp.software-eng.cognitive OR comp.software-eng.user-interface
>
>How about using the existing comp.sw hierarchy?
>
>	comp.sw.engineering
>	comp.sw.cog-eng

Please, to say that cog-eng is a software issue is similar to saying that
electrical engineering is a radio or TV issue.  It is a historical 
accident (owing to the fact that computer folks were the dominant net
users) that a lot of stuff got placed under the comp hierarchy rather
than some other hierarchy (eng. perhaps).  Besides interface software
design, cog-eng relates to hardware design, documentation, training,
the design of a telephone, a stapler, the layout of you-are-here maps
in shopping malls, curriculum design for 4th grade, where the windshield
wiper in a car should be placed, and virtually any other design problem
where knowledge of human cognition is relevant.

Yes, most, but not all, of the postings in comp.cog-eng concern interface
software, but this is merely an artifact of the current user population.
Ten years down the line with the spread of computer literacy perhaps the
distribution of net users will be more representitive of the distribution
of researchers and practioners in all domains of inquiry.  Maybe by then
we will see top nodes like:

eng.electrical
eng.mechanical
eng.software
eng.cognitive

etc.

Just my two cents,

Alex 

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