In a post entitled CS Broke Joe Gregorio writes
Computer Science, at a deep and fundamental level, is broken, and that applies not only to software but to hardware. One of the reasons that I have this feeling is that after programming for the past 25 years the field hasn't really changed. The conversations aren't any different. You could substitute 'Windows API' or 'Borland CGI' for 'HTML and CSS' and you'd be having the same exact conversations I had 15 or 20 years ago. We still struggle with leaks, be it memory, or file handles, or threads, or whatever. We still have race conditions. We still struggle with software that grows linearly in features but exponentially in complexity.
Two things came to mind as I read this
-
If your definition of computer science includes HTML & CSS or Win32 then you're doing it wrong. In the words of Edsger Dijkstra, computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
-
Even if you limit the discussion to computer programming, does it also mean that civil engineering is broken because people today still have to discuss and solve the same kinds problems faced by the builders of the great wall of China or the Roman aqueducts?
Now Playing: Ice Cube - Go to Church