On 9/14/07, Ray Tayek <rtayek@ca.rr.com> wrote:
maybe it is a natural science http://cs.gmu.edu/cne/pjd/PUBS/CACMcols/cacmJul07.pdf
thanks
I do not suppose for one moment that Peter Denning was intending his article for the digital dinosaur which I without doubt am --- if still able to recognise that the issues it addresses are sufficiently important and interesting to warrent my attempting to extract enlightenment therefrom. Sadly, the experience proves both irritating and disappointing. Replete with sententious hand-waving --- "... the GP Web site contemplates a Great Principles Library, an evolving collection of materials, tools, and editorial process to support the learning, teaching, application, and cross linking of technologies and principles" --- allusions so vague as to be almost devoid of discernible meaning --- "An example of a new principle is the scale-free structure of network connectivity; an example of an out-of-use principle is the guideline for vacuum tube logic circuits" --- and, where it does deign to descend to concreteness, fatuous --- "For example, they teach binary numbers by having children build numbers from cards with 1, 2, 4, and 8 dots on them ... The subtle genius of their approach is exposing how many computing concepts don't need computers." --- I'm afraid this is not the revelation to bouleverse my attitude to Computer Science. Fred Lunnon