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- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!hal.com!darkstar.UCSC.EDU!osr
- From: rxb@leo.Stanford.EDU (Ramesh Bharadwaj)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.research
- Subject: Re: Future of CS & CE research (Petition)
- Message-ID: <190j4cINNsd3@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>
- Date: 13 Sep 92 23:33:32 GMT
- References: <18iq9lINNe7v@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>
- Organization: DSO, Stanford University
- Lines: 55
- Approved: comp-os-research@ftp.cse.ucsc.edu
- NNTP-Posting-Host: ftp.cse.ucsc.edu
- Originator: osr@ftp
-
- Here's my 2 cents worth on the petition and why there should be a petition
- drive to kill the one being sponsored:
-
-
- I have not read the report "Computing the Future:..." but after reading
- the "Executive Summary" and the discussion that followed, I came to the
- conclusion that someone should probably be initiating a counter petition
- to kill the one being sponsored.
-
- I think the corporate world, the general public and funding agencies are
- sick and tired of tall claims made by researchers in "A.I." or, for that
- matter, by "computing theorists" (whose "results" often bear an uncanny
- resemblance to earlier work in mathematics or logic -- they are often a
- rehash of previous work couched in different terminology, published in a
- different journal, and read by a different audience). It should therefore
- not come as a surprise that the funding agencies are beginning to ask where
- their money is going.
-
- The notion that research funding should be based solely on the criterion of
- "concrete demonstration of benefit to the nation", although regrettable
- because it may slow down basic research in the short term, is a reform that
- will have a positive effect on the whole -- a few good researchers may be
- cut off, but it is undeniable that more good research than bad is going to
- get funded. I see it as a knee-jerk reaction to years of systematic
- misrepresentation and irresponsibility on the part of many researchers in
- "computer science", particularly the ones at "prestigious" institutions.
-
- If computer scientists feel that they are being downgraded to "soldiers on
- the ground", they should probably ask themselves if their community is
- worthy of being trusted; questionable research areas, tall claims and
- misleading proposals (" It has always been easy to couch proposals for
- support of computer science in practical terms", to paraphrase your own
- words) have produced rhetoric that has no bearing with reality. Perhaps
- researchers should begin to be honest with themselves first, before
- they sponsor petitions to withdraw the NRC report.
-
- Merging Computer Science and Computer Engineering is not such a bad thing
- -- it will weed out the chaff and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
- To start with, the division is artificial and has done more harm than good.
- However, unsuccessful Philosophers, Linguists, Physicists, Cognitive
- Psychologists, Mathematicians and Logicians who have found a safe haven
- by calling themselves computer scientists, may not find the move so welcome
- -- having to rub shoulders with real engineers may uncover embarrassing gaps
- in their knowledge of computing.
-
- All the problems of any substance that you identify as problems that give
- computer science its structure (sic), are within the domain of Software
- Engineering. As for those that are not, all I can say is that funding for
- Alchemy declined very quickly as soon as people realized its impossible
- claims and irreproducible results.
-
-
- Ramesh Bharadwaj,
-
- Ph.D. Student in Software Engineering.
-