Comments on: Computer Science and Empiricism http://evanmeagher.net/2010/01/computer-science-and-empiricism Pragmatic design and tech Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:13:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Evan http://evanmeagher.net/2010/01/computer-science-and-empiricism/comment-page-1#comment-204 Evan Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:06:24 +0000 http://evanmeagher.net/?p=177#comment-204 Good point. I'm reminded of the controversial claim that computation is more fundamental to science than mathematics itself. It's akin to the argument that a good knife is more important to the act of cooking than a superb recipe. A valid statement, but not the whole picture. I would argue that the "beautiful code" trend is, to a large degree, due to the pervasiveness of programming. Writing code isn't any longer a task that computer scientists alone can take part in. The proliferation of high-level languages have abstracted away all but the most fundamental of underlying principles, and thus ushered in a whole new cast of programmers. Much more design- or aesthetics-oriented people are writing code nowadays, and their input is steering computation in interesting directions. Good point. I’m reminded of the controversial claim that computation is more fundamental to science than mathematics itself. It’s akin to the argument that a good knife is more important to the act of cooking than a superb recipe. A valid statement, but not the whole picture.

I would argue that the “beautiful code” trend is, to a large degree, due to the pervasiveness of programming. Writing code isn’t any longer a task that computer scientists alone can take part in. The proliferation of high-level languages have abstracted away all but the most fundamental of underlying principles, and thus ushered in a whole new cast of programmers. Much more design- or aesthetics-oriented people are writing code nowadays, and their input is steering computation in interesting directions.

]]> By: Mike Mondragon http://evanmeagher.net/2010/01/computer-science-and-empiricism/comment-page-1#comment-202 Mike Mondragon Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:16:40 +0000 http://evanmeagher.net/?p=177#comment-202 I agree that computer science has become more empirical. It seems to me that it is still more scientific since it lies with in the domain of mathematics and from that has ties to the forces that prevail in nature. I believe that the sense of a shift towards the empirical is because art and design has been given much more consideration in programming, particularly in the last five years. I agree that computer science has become more empirical. It seems to me that it is still more scientific since it lies with in the domain of mathematics and from that has ties to the forces that prevail in nature. I believe that the sense of a shift towards the empirical is because art and design has been given much more consideration in programming, particularly in the last five years.

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