NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/comp/os/research/924

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-14 | 4.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Heiko Kiessling)
Newsgroups: comp.os.research
Subject: Re: Future of CS & CE research (Petition)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:50:58 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany, Department of Computer Science
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Approved: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: ftp.cse.ucsc.edu
Originator: osr@ftp

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Ramesh Bharadwaj) writes:
|> 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.

Everything you say is perfectly true -- also your claim that all problems
in computer science are within software engineering is sort of an
overstatement (this is the same as saying that nearly all research in
natural and engineering sciences lies within the domain of computer
science merely because computers are used :-). On the other hand
suppressing basic research seems to hinder the search for general
(and thus not application specific) solutions to problems, and this
IS a serious assault on the idea many serious informaticians have of
themselves and their science. I therefore don't support the main
statement the mentioned report is obviously making. If its advice will
be followed sooner or later the U.S. of A. will fall behind the rest of
the world as far as informatics is concerned.
--
  Heiko,

  Ph.D. Student in Operating Systems and Programming Languages