Re:The social side of science seen in the research on progra...
by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @11:46AM
(#22536432)
Architecture is very much about culture. I'm not sure I'd call it a social science, but the science part of architecture - making sure that buildings don't fall down - is left to structural engineers.
If you read how architects justify their designs, they're full of references to culture, philosophy, and occasionally - too rarely - practical research into how people move through and live/work in spaces.
It's a social activity in that architects design for other architects. Clients are secondary.
CS is actually no different, it's just far less culturally self-aware. There's nothing objective about CS. It grew out of a specific philosophical current, and it could easily have gone in other directions, emphasising other kinds of entity relationships - e.g. less atomised and sequential, more contextual and associative. That in turn would have influenced the design of the hardware.
If you read how architects justify their designs, they're full of references to culture, philosophy, and occasionally - too rarely - practical research into how people move through and live/work in spaces.
It's a social activity in that architects design for other architects. Clients are secondary.
CS is actually no different, it's just far less culturally self-aware. There's nothing objective about CS. It grew out of a specific philosophical current, and it could easily have gone in other directions, emphasising other kinds of entity relationships - e.g. less atomised and sequential, more contextual and associative. That in turn would have influenced the design of the hardware.