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- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!crcnis1.unl.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!usenet-feed.cc.umr.edu!ckincy
- From: ckincy@cs.umr.edu (Charles Kincy)
- Subject: Just how old is CompSci anyway? (How many Nobel Prizes has IBM won?)
- References: <1993Jan5.183131.19591@umr.edu> <1993Jan5.215350.16675@spang.Camosun.BC.CA>
- Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 05:24:52 GMT
- Nntp-Posting-Host: next3.cs.umr.edu
- Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla, Rolla, MO
- Sender: cnews@umr.edu (UMR Usenet News Post)
- Message-ID: <1993Jan6.052452.28141@umr.edu>
- Lines: 35
-
- In article <1993Jan5.215350.16675@spang.Camosun.BC.CA> dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker) writes:
- >ckincy@cs.umr.edu (Charles Kincy) writes:
- >[....]
- >: Most people would say that Computer Science is not a science, but
- >: a craft. [Read comp.org.eff.talk for more about this]. However,
- >: even if it is a science, it's only been around for about 60 years
- >: or so. Too early to break with tradition I suppose.
- >
- >60 years? What are you dating this from then?
-
- Well, ENIAC came out when? Mid-40s? I believe the work on it started
- sometime in the mid-30s, in earnest. And there was also something
- developed in Germany called "Plaenkalkul". A programming language
- before there was a computer to implement it! [Although, this was an
- isolated effort...]
-
- You could be more liberal and call it 100 years old, going back to
- Babbage's calculating thing that helped make the Census useful again.
- [Before that machine, it was taking close to ten years to tabulate
- the Census...]
-
- Or, you could be less liberal, and call it 40 years old, starting with
- the development of FORTRAN.
-
- 60 years is just as good as any other figure, in other words. :)
-
- cpk
-
- Ok, I may have horked some dates. I need to get the history book
- out again. :)
- --
- "The WHITE ZONE is for loading and unloading only. If you gotta load or un-
- load, go to the WHITE ZONE. You'll love it. It's a way of life!" --Zappa
-
- Technology always seems to keep one step ahead of human wisdom.
-