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Another attempt to define computer science

Published: 04 June 1973 Publication History

Abstract

There are equally important scientific and engineering aspects to computer science; they may be described as follows:
SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
The unique aim of the inductive sciences is to predict the future. This has been accomplished in the physical sciences by means of mathematico-symbolic models; the method has been much less successful in the behavioral and life sciences due to the difficulties of constructing soluble models which are valid over a sufficiently large domain. The advent of the computer has made it possible to construct and resolve models sufficiently complex to be interesting although their domain of validity is still limited: The program is here the model. To a large extent, the utility of the mathematical models (or theories) developed in the physical sciences is predicated on the possibility of developing mathematically generalized analytic solutions which permit predictions of very general types of events. This becomes proportionally more difficult as the model becomes more complicated. Thus even though the computer permits resolution of individual cases which otherwise would not be practically feasible, it cannot provide the power of an analytic solution. Thus the scientific aspects of computer science are similar to those of mathematics: they deal with all facets of the construction and especially the resolution of models embodied in this case by programs. The most fundamental problem is still to obtain (if at all possible) general analytic solutions to classes of algorithmic interactions described by programs and this may be considered as one of the most important long-range goals of computer science. In view of the enormous difficulties expected of such an endeavor, secondary goals must also be pursued; these include theoretical studies of program's schema, development and formal analysis of programming languages, development of more powerful computer systems, etc.
ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
The engineering aspects of computer science are directly related to system design. Defining recursively a system as a collection of interacting objects or systems, we are particularly concerned with systems whose components interact through procedures embodied in computer programs. The aim of engineering is to design a system in such a fashion as to optimize a given criterion function subject to certain given constraints. Thus the design of complex systems where the computer plays a major part requires both extensive knowledge of computer science and of the discipline where the system is utilized. Since a computer system is itself a system of hardware and/or software, computer science design is doubly related to computer science: as the discipline wherein the system is utilized and as the discipline necessary to carry out the design.

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AFIPS '73: Proceedings of the June 4-8, 1973, national computer conference and exposition
June 1973
936 pages
ISBN:9781450379168
DOI:10.1145/1499586
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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  • AFIPS: American Federation of Information Processing Societies

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 June 1973

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