[SIGCIS-Members] Panel on computer science [Re: My CACM column on "The Tears of Donald Knuth"]

Dave Walden dave.walden.family at gmail.com
Fri Jan 16 12:16:20 PST 2015


I don't know if it is relevant or not, but Peter Denning has a new book
coming out on Great Principles in Computing.  I have my pre-order in to
Amazon.  I think it ships in February.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 2:39 PM, Janet Abbate <abbate at vt.edu> wrote:

> Just to clarify, I'm talking about computer _science_ specialties here.
>
> On Jan 16, 2015, at 2:33 51PM, Janet Abbate wrote:
>
> > Dave, that's a great idea for a SIGCIS panel. We could ask participants
> to compile and present either a historical overview of the main milestones
> in their computing speciality, or a list of its major concepts, tools or
> approaches (whatever the main "outputs" are in their specialty). The
> "computing speciality" could be as broad or narrow as they feel comfortable
> discussing.
> >
> > As Tom points out, the obstacle to historians is knowing *what* we need
> to learn about computer science. Actually learning the material is no
> harder than learning other esoteric material historians have to grapple
> with.
> >
> > Bonus: We could see some lively debate if the panelists come up with
> non-intersecting lists of the great achievements in their field. : )
> >
> > Janet
> >
> > On Jan 15, 2015, at 8:40 30AM, Dave Walden wrote:
> >
> >> There are lots of people who already know a lot of computer science who
> could be encouraged to help research or write more history, for example,
> >> - I know an undergraduate history major who then got a PhD in computer
> science
> >> - lots of us who studied and practice computer science for our career
> have retired and now have time to research and/or write computing history
> >> How about a SIGCIS session at SHOT oriented to one-time practitioners
> and advertising for their participation on lists where they might see the
> session announcement, e.g., on the Internet History list.
> >> Any of the above might also be willing to collaborate in a piece of
> history research.
> >> I know lots of us who have spent lots of time helping popular authors
> of computing history understand the technology.  We could also help
> professionally trained historians if they asked us, either as named
> co-authors and full collaborators or simply helping with technology in the
> background with an acknowledgement at the end of the paper.  If we don't
> know the technology area ourselves, we probably know someone who knows who
> might be willing to help.
> >> Of course, there is also quite a number of professionally trained
> historians who have undergraduate and perhaps graduate degrees in computer
> science.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> At 07:59 PM 1/14/2015, Nabeel Siddiqui wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear all,
> >>>
> >>> Janet beat me to it, but I had a similar reaction upon reading the
> article.  I believe that two additional factors will lead to the technical
> history of computer science diminishing even further. Â
> >>>
> >>> First, it is nearly impossible for a graduate student to currently
> spend time gaining a technical understanding of computer science and still
> stay competitive for jobs in a humanities field.  As Tom noted, there are
> no jobs available for a student that wanted to do this kind of work. I
> would take the technical history of computer science to be, at best, suited
> for an intellectual history position.  Intellectual history itself has
> eschewed this type of approach and now heavily focuses on social history.
> There, even a student trained in intellectual history would have a hard
> time gaining a foothold in the academy.  A student would likely have to
> learn the technical literature on their own unless they were specifically
> admitted to a program to study the history of computers. In my own
> interdisciplinary program of American Studies, I have had the opportunity
> to take a great deal of independent studies, but I have still had a
> difficult time taking a course outside of humanities departments. Â
> >>>
> >>> Two, while this listserv is an exception, few historians of science
> are trained in computer science in any significant way.  The few that are
> usually have their undergraduate degrees in computer science rather than
> vice versa.  While some of these people have been able to dable in both
> history and computer science, I would say it is getting rarer with newer
> students.  In fact, I have found that many students of computer science
> now take more courses in "marketable" skills like programming and
> networking.  While these contain a technical component, I don't know how
> many in the future would have the training necessary to understand old
> technical documents that may contain approaches that are outdated or
> unnecessary for their own work. Â
> >>>
> >>> I would love to see some fellowships or opportunities for humanities
> graduate students to counter this.  In my own research on personal
> computers, I come through a great deal of articles dealing with technical
> topics in early hobbyist magazines.  Unfortunately, because these hobbyist
> magazines assume that their readers are other engineers, things like
> schematics, code, etc. is often lost on me.  I don't believe a historian
> necessarily needs to know this to gain the gist of the articles, but it
> would be helpful.  Business historians have been doing this for a while
> with workshops that teach economics and finance basics.  Digital
> humanities scholars have also been at the forefront of humanities oriented
> technical training with workshops on programming and statistics. Â
> >>>
> >>> Sincerely,
> >>>
> >>> Nabeel
> >>>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> > _______________________________________________
> > This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion
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