
I call bullshit on Computer "Science" - mgrouchy
http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-call-bullshit-on-computer-science
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ajays
What does Computer "Science" have to do with programmer productivity? That's
like claiming Physics is not a science because you can't measure physicists'
productivity effectively.

~~~
PatrickTulskie
"I don't understand this thing so I'm going to call it bullshit."

------
geophile
Computer Science != Software Engineering. Sounds like your beef is with
Software Engineering.

~~~
raganwald
My beef is mostly hyperbole. But FWIW, my beef is with our industry. Despite
my hysterical and contrived rantings, there are a few good empirical results,
but those researchers are awfully lonely. There are maybe two(!) good books on
the subject, Peopleware and Making Software. How many people making decisions
about developing software have read either or both?

Most claims about variances in programmer productivity cite a study that is
more than fifty years old. How many programming languages have been developed
since that study, and who (if anybody) has done empirical research into
deciding whether there are attributes of a language that have a direct bearing
on productivity?

I agree with claims that automatic garbage collection, not OO, is the single
most important productivity lever to come out of Universities and into
industry. How do we know if this is true or false?

~~~
keyist
_"There are maybe two(!) good books on the subject, Peopleware and Making
Software."_

What about Fred Brooks's works? Not being facetious -- curious to know if they
slipped your mind or if you just don't rate them.

Criminally underrated comment on the topic: "Part of the problem is that the
discourse on methodology is mostly conducted by people who don't themselves do
the work. Imagine a bunch of managers working out a 'process' for, say,
mathematicians. They'd be laughed out of the room." (gruseom,
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406051>)

Along that vein, while we're talking scientists -- are there studies on
scientist productivity? Even for computer scientists, I'm pretty sure no one's
going around debating whether an academic paper is better if it's written by
two researchers versus one. The one obvious parallel I can think of is peer
review vis-a-vis code review. But that is a process for after the initial work
is produced, not one that dictates how someone should conduct the thinking
process for their job.

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tgflynn
This post makes good points, the title is a bit unfortunate however, since it
has little to do with what the author actually claims.

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grav1tas
I think there's some level of equivocation going on in this article.

P1. Computer Science has to do with computers.

P2. Science is more than formal systems, namely empirical evidence and
studies.

C. Computer Science is incomplete if it does not incorporate empirical
evidence.

The problem as I see it is not that Computer Science is not Science in the
sense that maybe Chemistry and Biology is a science. It's called "Computer
Science" not "Computer" + "Science". The term is atomic, in my opinion and you
can't really draw the word "Science" out of the name of the field and derive
some kind of meaning out of it. CS tends to hang out somewhere between the
maths and sciences, but not fully one or the other. I'm not sure how you would
go about applying the scientific method to programming.

Also, I think the beef is with software engineering as stated before.

------
grasshoper
I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
statement.

~~~
raganwald
[http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-cannot-rightly-apprehend-
th...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-cannot-rightly-apprehend-the-
confusion-of-i)

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steveklabnik
Yep, we really need to get on fixing all of the terms related to the various
computing disciplines.

Companies only confound this further when they want "computer science"
degrees, when they really want software engineers. And most software
engineering programs I've been exposed to are a joke. Maybe I just need to get
out more...

I also have no real ideas or thoughts on how "we" need to "fix" this somehow.
Just frustration.

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burgerbrain
While I agree that "Computer _Science_ " is a bullshit term (would be more
accurate to call it something along the lines of "Computation Theory" or
"Computation Mathematics"), this article misses that point and attacks the
term for the wrong reasons. I call bullshit on his understanding of what
computer science is.

And for what it's worth, I think Computer Engineering isn't a particularly
strong engineering discipline either...

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euroclydon
Who cares about programmer productivity? The whole notion of trying to
quantify, measure and predict it is anti-thematic to what's going on at Y
Combinator.

Want to see programmer productivity? I'll show you it to you in retrospect.
Tools?!?! Languages?!?! How about passion and motivation???

If you're a big company trying to implement the next big thing, just buy it or
hire someone with a track record of success.

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dmazin
Almost as a rule, studies with "science" in the name are not true sciences.

