🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov9.005241.29492@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:

|> To me computer science is about four interactions: information and
|> time, computation and communication, models and reality, and
|> perspective and users.  Discreteness is neither emphasized nor
|> deemphasized in this view, the integers and the reals are both
|> important in CS.

Do you see CS as having any immediate empirical content in the
manner of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.?  If so, could you
describe this a bit?  (I concede that "immediate empirical
content" is not very precise, but I think we know what is 
intended.)  It seems pretty clear that given your view of the
nature of CS, it really has nothing to do with actual physical
machines, but rather more properly deals with "machines" in the
logical (mathematical) sense (Turing machines, for example).

Your view of CS is a coherent one, but I'm not sure
how widely received it would be.  Simply as a matter of your
own personal opinion, do you think this view is widely shared
(in both academia and industry), or do you offer it rather along
the lines of "What CS *should* be"?  Do you wish to subsume
so-called "software engineering" under CS, or would you treat
it differently as a distinct applied discipline?
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm