🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9107300407.AA04935@spls5.ccs.mt.nec.co.jp>, Huw Jonathan Rogers (hjr) writes:

hjr> Most comp. sci. departments are offspring of maths departments,
hjr> not engineering. These mathematicians have steadily corrupted
hjr> what comp. sci.  is until, (at least as far as software is
hjr> concerned), it has stopped being the engineering discipline it
hjr> once was and become an excuse for lecturing maths (CSP, Hoare
hjr> proof rules, loop invariants, preconditions, bullshit bullshit
hjr> bullshit incapplicable totally OTT bullshit) at the undergraduate
hjr> level, and an excuse for cutting down rainforests to generate
hjr> huge numbers of unread articles in obscure journals at the
hjr> research level.

That's a bad case of mathphobia you have there. I suspect you also
have a distorted picture of what the engineering departments you think
you prefer do. Guess what, engineers spend most of their time doing
maths. The toughest math courses I took were those aimed at engineers. 

It is precisely the attempt to turn CS into an engineering subject
that lead to the introduction of the mathematics.  

hjr> There is definitely room for a programming department, but if
hjr> it's got to have a parent for gods sake give it to Elec Eng,
hjr> since at least they're engineers and know what "manufacturing"
hjr> actually means.

The average engineering dept. wouldn't touch a `programming' course
unless it included enough of the math you dislike so much to ensure
that a graduate `programming engineer' was as well equipped as a
graduate electrical engineer to sit down, design and evaluate a
program ending up with a design _and_ the math to show that the design
will fullfil the spec.

Suprisingly enough, engineers don't just sit down and hack up a quick
bridge and then run a few hundred vehicles of various kinds over it to
see if it works.

hjr> However except for people doing cutting edge research, intrinsic ability
hjr> isn't necessary - the skills *can* be taught. 

Yes, and many of those essential skils are mathematical.

--
rjc@cstr.ed.ac.uk			_O_
					 |<