CT and Computers
Posted On Monday, October 12, 2009 at at 10/12/2009 10:05:00 AM by Gary HartleyThanks for the great meeting the other day, folks. There was an abundance of energy, and, as usual, 1.5 hours did not seem like enough. What a great team!
As we look forward to sorting the concept of CT in the coming weeks, I want to remind us all that ours is an interdisciplinary project, with application and meaning far beyond the study and use of computers. Wing's presentation at Yahoo! Labs makes this quite clear, and I think we also understand that if our work remains confined to the CS realm, we will have missed the point. Nevertheless, our discussions may flow that way if we are not vigilant. This may be one of our greatest challenges!
As we look forward to sorting the concept of CT in the coming weeks, I want to remind us all that ours is an interdisciplinary project, with application and meaning far beyond the study and use of computers. Wing's presentation at Yahoo! Labs makes this quite clear, and I think we also understand that if our work remains confined to the CS realm, we will have missed the point. Nevertheless, our discussions may flow that way if we are not vigilant. This may be one of our greatest challenges!
| I also was sent a recent NYT opinion article with some interesting comments about our also-ran status as a nation in the world intellectual and financial economy. Let me know what you think! |  |
A clear message we need to digest from Krugman's comments is that US education's fiscal and political problems are not insignificant. Grabbing the attention of practitioners, curriculum owners and decision-makers will require art and tact. If one of our big jobs is serving up compelling reasons to enlist in the CT mission then overcoming the inertia and FUD of the current state will be a major challenge.
I don't know what you mean by "confined to the CS realm".
Traditional computer science is the home of these concepts. I believe that the point it that these concepts have wide and significant application "outside" or the CS area, it there is such a thing as "outside".
To use Wing's 3R's analogy, it is a bit like saying that we do not want the use of English to be "confined to the english realm". How is that even possible??