Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by seisvelas on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @04:47PM
(#20510050)
From my (limited) knowledge, CS as a formal academic discipline largely emerged from the renamed Applied Mathematics departments of universities.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by danielscrubs on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @01:14AM
(#20512518)
Yes. But cs degrees are not about learning coding. We have coding schools for that. It’s about learning the intersection of computing and math. But having science in the name sounds cooler so people take that instead.
Re:No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers
by TheKarateKid on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @12:49PM
(#20517043)
Anyone with a CS degree will be able to tell you there's a huge difference between being a programmer/coder, and being a Computer Scientist.
Yes, most people can learn to code without a degree but to be able to fully understand the scientific/mathematical foundation of why things are the way they are, and to use those skills to create something scientifically new, probably requires a degree.
I briefly mentioned how my non-formal studies of religion and philosophy have helped to inform me - mainly in the context of "machine learning".
Your thoughts about how such studies apply to CS in general, though, are interesting. I noted that there are extreme overlaps between CS and many, many other areas of study that I believe both informs and is informed by those areas (whether known consciously or not).
We may actually be doing a disservice to ourselves (and perhaps for the world) by having (though rightly, I suppose) tying Computer Science so tightly with that of Mathematics.
Of course, that could just mean that mathematics also in turn informs and is informed by those subjects, I suppose...? Which is arguably true from what I understand of mathematics and the history of mathematics!
I guess, though, is what I am getting at is that we - humanity that is - have somewhat "enclosed" CS as a subset or adjunct of mathematics. Many don't seem to understand or "see" that so many other subjects and topics are involved. Not having that understanding may be hindering our advancement (both in CS and perhaps even as a species).