From: rxb@leo.Stanford.EDU (Ramesh Bharadwaj)
Newsgroups: comp.os.research
Subject: Re: Future of CS & CE research (Petition)
Date: 13 Sep 92 23:33:32 GMT
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
NNTP-Posting-Host: ftp.cse.ucsc.edu
Originator: osr@ftp

Here's my 2 cents worth on the petition and why there should be a petition
drive to kill the one being sponsored:


I have not read the report "Computing the Future:..." but after reading
the "Executive Summary" and the discussion that followed, I came to the
conclusion that someone should probably be initiating a counter petition
to kill the one being sponsored.

I think the corporate world, the general public and funding agencies are
sick and tired of tall claims made by researchers in "A.I." or, for that
matter, by "computing theorists" (whose "results" often bear an uncanny
resemblance to earlier work in mathematics or logic -- they are often a
rehash of previous work couched in different terminology, published in a
different journal, and read by a different audience).  It should therefore
not come as a surprise that the funding agencies are beginning to ask where
their money is going. 

The notion that research funding should be based solely on the criterion of 
"concrete demonstration of benefit to the nation", although regrettable
because it may slow down basic research in the short term, is a reform that
will have a positive effect on the whole -- a few good researchers may be
cut off, but it is undeniable that more good research than bad is going to
get funded.  I see it as a knee-jerk reaction to years of systematic
misrepresentation and irresponsibility on the part of many researchers in
"computer science", particularly the ones at "prestigious" institutions.
 
If computer scientists feel that they are being downgraded to "soldiers on
the ground", they should probably ask themselves if their community is
worthy of being trusted; questionable research areas, tall claims and 
misleading proposals (" It has always been easy to couch proposals for
support of computer science in practical terms", to paraphrase your own
words) have produced rhetoric that has no bearing with reality.  Perhaps
researchers should begin to be honest with themselves first, before
they sponsor petitions to withdraw the NRC report.

Merging Computer Science and Computer Engineering is not such a bad thing
-- it will weed out the chaff and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
To start with, the division is artificial and has done more harm than good. 
However, unsuccessful Philosophers, Linguists, Physicists, Cognitive
Psychologists, Mathematicians and Logicians who have found a safe haven
by calling themselves computer scientists, may not find the move so welcome
-- having to rub shoulders with real engineers may uncover embarrassing gaps
in their knowledge of computing.

All the problems of any substance that you identify as problems that give
computer science its structure (sic), are within the domain of Software 
Engineering.  As for those that are not, all I can say is that funding for
Alchemy declined very quickly as soon as people realized its impossible
claims and irreproducible results.


Ramesh Bharadwaj,

Ph.D. Student in Software Engineering.