

"What society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil" (1994) - groaner
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EWD1175.html

======
iamwil
So I read it, and it seems like his point is buried somewhere in there.

I get that he thinks like industry and academics in computing shouldn't mix,
because they have very different time horizons and goals.

But what's the strength of the academic enterprise aka the title? The only
part I saw in the entire essay was:

    
    
      The explanation is that, with all its aloofness, the
      university has an essential role to play, viz. to explain
      to the world the foolishness of its ways.
    

That's it? Am I missing something?

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, that wasn't a very strong defense. Critiquing current practices is _one_
thing some parts of academia should do, but it'd be sad if that were 100% of
what it were doing. The strength of the academic enterprise imo is doing hard-
to-monetize basic research: developing the ideas and techniques that after
several more iterations will produce or enable interesting things. I tend to
think of tech-heavy startups as essentially mining ideas and results that are
promising but have never been made practical; academia's job is to keep
restocking that mine.

~~~
Perceval
_Critiquing current practices is one thing some parts of academia should do,
but it'd be sad if that were 100% of what it were doing._

Precisely. And Dijkstra seems to take great offense at the critiques traveling
in the opposing direction. To wit:

 _Did the writer not know that the use of the term "the real world" is usually
interpreted as a symptom of rabid anti-intellectualism, or did he not mind?_

As a PhD candidate in political science, a good 90% of my colleagues could use
a daily injunction to think more about the problems of "the real world,"
rather than the abstractions of Deleuze and Guattari.

------
barrkel
I hadn't heard of the concept of Buxton Index before; it looks like a valuable
tool for removing some of the heat from disagreements.

~~~
yesbabyyes
Exactly my feeling! I will use this for my own well-being from now on. Such a
simple insight and yet one I have never reflected over.

------
eldondev
I had trouble hitting this, Google doc cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q7G5bd4...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q7G5bd49Hi0J:www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EWD1175.html+http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EWD1175.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com)

------
gaius
_My second warning remark is that I shall refuse to discuss the academic
enterprise in financial terms._

In other words, "shut up and cough up, you ignorant plebs, so I can go on
sneering at you from the luxury of my ivory tower".

~~~
Deestan
Do you believe everything must be explicitly defensible within the irrational
and innately egotistical and greedy philosophies of finance?

FWIW, finance bigwigs live in _actual_ luxuirous ivory towers.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
finance doesn't magically confer certain properties on humans. human seek to
satisfy their wants with limited means. does the pursuit of money lead to
evils? sure, but money is only a stand in for other wants. money is a good
because it is transparent in a way that other methods of accounting for the
distribution of goods isn't. if you can quantify the resources that go towards
X instead of Y and yet society claims to value Y above X you have some very
useful data to investigate. contrast this with the primary competition for
money as a means of distribution: opaque and non-fungible social favor. when a
system of social favor redirects resources in a way inconsistent with values
it isn't a simple matter of pointing to quantifiable numbers.

------
gsivil
Even though the chosen current title is at a first read catchy it really does
injustice to the article. I would suggest you to put the superficially boring
titile of the original:

"The strengths of the academic enterprise"

~~~
groaner
I certainly agree with you, though the truth seems to be that the so-called
"academic enterprise" seems to be succumbing to the pressures of industry. My
university's CS department has begun offering grad-level courses in silly
things like "Personal Software Process" and "Topics in Software Management"
which, from first impressions of the students, are filled with utter BS.

~~~
stcredzero
BS courses in Computer Science -- this is nothing new.

Also keep in mind that such courses do address serious issues, and sometimes
such courses aren't BS.

The last thing to keep in mind, is that sometimes a person will encounter
information which is vital to them, but they won't have the expertise to
recognize it as such.

Keep this in mind if you ever find yourself trying to explain why automated
tests or source control is important to pointy-haired bosses with glazed-over
eyes. Even in 2011, this happens in the real world all the time.

That said, the stuff that's really important in a course like "Topics in
Software Management" isn't likely to be taught well by a college professor.
Few college professors have to succeed in their jobs by managing a group to
produce good software, and if they used to do that stuff, the environment they
worked in might bear very little resemblance to the place you'll work. Learn
that stuff from people you admire who produce awesome results.

------
gimpf
He describes a situation arising due to the conflict that we need more and
more 3rd level education for work skills, simply due to the more and more
demanding problems, but currently the only, at least partially, working 3rd
level education systems are the universities.

Lacking other options, universities must (and do) provide business-skill-
education, whether or not one likes it.

The ideal ratio between "academic endeavors" and "skill-teaching endeavors" is
not known, and we will probably go many wrong ways before we find something
that actually satisfies the participants, if ever.

However, a very fine piece of text, as, plus or minus some points, it reminds
us of different goals of different institutions, and the complex
interdependence of our culture between all those different parts.

------
thebigredjay
He seems surprisingly dismissive of the "real world."

 _Academic computing science is doing fine, thank you, and unless I am totally
mistaken, it will have a profound influence. I am not referring to the changes
that result from computers in their capacity of tools. Okay, the equipment
opens new opportunities for the entertainment industry, but who cares about
that anyhow. The equipment has enabled the airline industry to make its rates
so complicated and volatile that you need an expert to buy a ticket, and for
this discouragement of air travel we can be grateful, but the true impact
comes from the equipment in its capacity of intellectual challenge._

------
pavel_lishin
Almost every paragraph made me think of Stephenson's Anathem, especially:

> The original Oxford Colleges were buildings fortified in order to protect
> the students against the rabble, and if you think that that is old hat, I
> refer you to the DDR or the People's Republic of China of only 25 years ago.
> It is a miracle whenever, these days, the academic world is tolerated at
> all; personally I am convinced that what tolerance there is would completely
> disappear, were the academic world to become secretive.

------
sampsonjs
I know EDW is a legend in CS, but that doesn't make everything he wrote
insightful. If you thought this was a long-winded, hard-to-read, pointless
rant, let me assure all his essays in his later years(i.e. since he took up
residence at UT Austin) are not worth your time. Perhaps some earlier stuff
might have more value.

------
lkozma
Sums up pretty nicely the situation 17 years later, i.e. today (see EU FP
"collaborative/interdisciplinary" projects for some grotesque examples)

------
cellularmitosis
"When a professor is no better than James Martin, he should start a business
instead". ouch.

~~~
MediaBehavior
Can someone link to J M ?

My attempts to disambiguate at wikipedia and google leave me still feeling out
of the loop on this one.

~~~
lkozma
I would guess: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Martin_%28author%29>

~~~
MediaBehavior
Thanks. Guess he's offered a mixed bag, judging from that.

For his 1977 (!) "The wired society: A challenge for tomorrow (
[http://www.amazon.com/Wired-Society-challenge-
tomorrow/dp/01...](http://www.amazon.com/Wired-Society-challenge-
tomorrow/dp/0139614419) ) he was nominated for a Pulitzer.

Serial found of consultancy firms - and one bought by TI. And then wikip says,

"According to Computerworld’s 25th anniversary issue, he was ranked fourth
among the 25 individuals who have most influenced the world of computer
science."

But I'm outside of the inside-joke: why he gets no love from Edsger W.
Dijkstra in the OP.

~~~
acqq
EDW believed that the real "computer science" is not "selling snake oil," like
Object Oriented Design Methods, which he considered a kind of selling
"business management" in software. He believed that the real "computer
science" is only in developing mathematical methods that enable fundamentally
new possibilities by using them. James Martin personifies a "snake oil seller"
for him.

By the way the Wikipedia entry for James Martin sounds to me a lot like it was
written by James Martin himself. Reading the entry it appears that JM invented
all by himself "Information Engineering," "Computer-Aided Software
Engineering," and "Rapid Application Development."

All three concepts would anyway be despised by EDW who here implies that
academics should work only with Buxton Index of 50.

------
klbarry
If this:

"The strength of the academic enterprise imo is doing hard-to-monetize basic
research: developing the ideas and techniques that after several more
iterations will produce or enable interesting things. I tend to think of tech-
heavy startups as essentially mining ideas and results that are promising but
have never been made practical; academia's job is to keep restocking that
mine."

and this:

"The explanation is that, with all its aloofness, the university has an
essential role to play, viz. to explain to the world the foolishness of its
ways."

Are the purpose of academia, then that's fine for academics in the sciences
and math. However, that still gives little justification for academics
specializing somewhere deep in liberal arts.

