
"Most creative people are not working in a university doing research anymore." - theoneill
http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2008/07/26/rest-in-peace-randy-pausch/
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vecter
_The reason why [Computer Science] research produces so little that can be
called creative programming these days is that the modern process of grant-
funded research is fundamentally incompatible with the task of writing
interesting, cool and relevant software. Rather, its goal is to produce
publications and careers, and it’s very good at that._

This is quite a naive point of view. To paraphrase Dijkstra:

 _Computer science is no more about programming than astronomy is about
telescopes._

(s/programming/computers/ for the original)

Look at this list
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science#Fields_of_comp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science#Fields_of_computer_science)
and tell me what percentage of that consists of programming. It's like saying
math is about numbers.

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brianlash
_It's like saying math is about numbers._

Isn't it? I saw where you were going with the astronomy/telescopes analogy,
but you lose me on the numbers bit.

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parenthesis
Math is about sets and relations and functions and logic, ..., and, yes,
numbers. But many branches of math aren't particularly or specifically
concerned with numbers (e.g. linear algebra, group theory, topology), and even
those which seem to be (e.g. number theory or real analysis) can be thought of
as about sets with particular properties (the mathematician's ideas of the
integers and the real numbers are* just ideas of sets with particular
properties).

[* are == need only be. The mathematician is allowed to be a realist about
numbers and think that there are _the_ real numbers etc., and that these are
what she is reasoning about.]

~~~
yummyfajitas
Some people take that viewpoint.

But in my view, math is about getting the right numbers, and you don't fully
understand a problem until you can get the right numbers out. Here are two
examples:

1) Theorem: det A != 0 implies Ax=b has a solution for a square matrix A.

If you actually try this, you'll discover all sorts of matrices A for which
the textbook method fails. Thinking carefully about how to find x _in the
presence of rounding errors_ leads you to discover condition numbers,
numerical range and all that other interesting stuff.

2) Theorem (circa 1870): Fourier series work. (In particular, they converge
pointwise.)

Gibbs: I tried, it didn't work for discontinuous functions. I made some
graphs, they are terrible. WTF!

Eventually, people paid attention to Gibbs and discovered Gibbs ringing.
Trying to figure this out led us to learn about uniform convergence, Hilbert
spaces and all that.

Of course, I'm a numerical analyst, so I might be a little biased.

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anewaccountname
>Paul Graham (of Viaweb and Y Combinator fame)

I tend to think of Viaweb as being "of Paul Graham fame".

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sgrove
This is a sensitive topic for me, since I'm in love with studying. I have to
disagree with a few points, namely that universities have developed into
bureaucracies primarily seeking to further careers. I worked as an
undergraduate researcher in a neuroscience lab, and although publication was
always a pressure, I don't know anyone who wasn't there because they didn't
want to be. Studying the same subject on such an exclusive basis for 5 years
or more can cause burnout, but everyone in the lab came in excited at the
possibilities of solving new problems. However, universities can do more to
ensure that their work helps the community directly - big research needs to
continue unabated, or perhaps even on an accelerated schedule, but students
and many professors can shift their focus from class-centric papers and
projects to community-based projects. Actually, this is the startup I'm
working on right now, and it came about because students "do not want to churn
out meaningless solutions to irrelevant problems", they want to do meaningful
things.

~~~
kakker
a neuroscience startup, you say? i'm fascinated!

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duane
It was never the University's role to innovate in the manner that the article
says they do. But just look at google summer of code: All of these
projects—really, really cool things—are university research projects. Besides,
it was never the university's role to innovate in the manner that the article
insinuates: i.e. tangible code. Most of the "innovation", or creative code,
you see in today's world are simply the application of already existing
theories.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
the university stopped being about pure research and started focusing on
applied research because of WW2. It was at this time that the military
industrial complex sunk some hooks into the university system.

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andreyf
_The reason why [Computer Science] research produces so little that can be
called creative programming these days..._

I'd like to see some examples of "meaningless solutions to irrelevant
problems". CS research was never really about producing "creative
programming", but rather about furthering what we know about computers, which
involves a lot of math and theoretical research.

~~~
duane
If I were to guess, he's talking about problems which don't affect his life or
aren't "interesting"; That, however, is where the money lies. Just think about
the founders of google: their research wasn't exactly thrilling, but it's led
them to be one of, if not _the_ , most successful tech companies of all time.

~~~
attack
Their research was rather thrilling at the time.

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brentr
I have a problem with the assumption that "publish or perish" is killing the
universities. The assumption is that one has to publish a lot of material.
That is not true. Gauss had an excellent quote that applies here, "few but
ripe." This point behind the quote is publish a little, but let what you
publish be truly brilliant. Do you honestly think Harvard's math department
would not want the person who manages to prove the Riemann hypothesis if that
person also only had two other published papers? The answer is resounding,
"hell no." Academia is about quality, not quantity.

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anamax
> Do you honestly think Harvard's math department would not want the person
> who manages to prove the Riemann hypothesis if that person also only had two
> other published papers?

Doesn't "want" depend somewhat on what they expect him to do in the future?
Suppose, for example, that he'd decided to devote the rest of his life to
beating video games while blindfolded. Would they still want him?

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brentr
You have suddenly taken my argument to the absurd. Under my assumption, this
mathematician is likely to continue to pursue mathematics. Why would he have
worked on the Riemann hypothesis if he had no true interest in math? In
addition to that, he has shown that he is willing to tackle some of the
greatest problems in mathematics. So, therefore, I assume that he will
continue to publish and that the ideas published are likely to be very deep.
Therefore, he is likely to continue publishing few papers, but very deep
papers.

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icky
Given the number of people alive, and the number of research positions in
universities, I have trouble accepting that this premise was _ever_ true.

