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Between the disciplines

2004; Association for Computing Machinery; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1145/1024338.1024340

2331-3927

Wolfgang Coy,

Multimedia Communication and Technology

Computer science as a discipline has come of age. In fact, as a human worker it could face retirement. Computer science is one of the few new disciplines that evolved and grew, searching and finding its place between other disciplines such as mathematics, electronic design, economics, and others. By its origin, it was an interdisciplinary challenge. And this challenge still exists. New fields of applications emerge, while the basic foundations are still in question. Is computer science really a "very large application of logic" as Edsger Dijkstra once summarized? Is it shifting towards one of the fashionable media studies, or should it evolve to a serious engineering practice as David Parnas points out? There seems to be a long winding road before us -- but there is neither a "dead-end road" nor a "giant leap" in sight. Quite certain, computer science will reposition under the influences of new application like digital media and the demands of other disciplines from genetics and nano-technology to marketing, also known as "customer relationship management". What is new for computer science compared, let's say, to literature, chemistry, or astronomy? Probably, it is the steady flow of new connections to other fields whether as application areas or as deeper connections as in bioinformatics, digital media, or computational linguistics, where computer science does neither stand as a fixed body of rules and methods, nor as a well-defined field of objects to be investigated.