<div dir="ltr">"<span style="font-size:12.8px">Science usually precedes the formal and systematic application of science. </span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> As craft develops in a parallel thread, commercial interests (or military interests?) and production lead to the joining of all these threads to produce true engineering."</span><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">I would actually take this a step further and argue that has only been *at all* true relatively recently, i.e. within the last few centuries, reaching its greatest apotheosis in the development of atomic weapons, where we went from some highly abstruse physics to strategic weapon systems within a few decades. Even today, it is only true some of the time. A linear model of technological</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> progress </span><span style="font-size:12.8px">(although popular with scientific advocacy organizations like, say, the American [Insert Discipline Here] Society),</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> where fundamental research funding goes in one end and consumer electronics or clinical therapies pop out the other end, is only a partial picture at least, and discounts the existence of engineering research as anything other than some pale version of applied science. (One could write at length about the social implications of the hierarchy thus conjured, but let's put a pin in that for now.)</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">For example, we didn't develop thermodynamics, and then work out steam engines. That technology was already flourishing and maturing, and the Industrial Revolution well under way, before Carnot turned his attention to internal and external combustion engines. Telegraphy and telephony were vigorous, commercially vital, and world-spanning technologies long before Claude Shannon birthed Information Theory as we know it on Ma Bell's dime. In our current era, general anesthesia is another banner example. G</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">eneral anesthesia</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> is a mature technology—you can go to a hospital and get safely put under for just however long is required. Yet we have no scientific idea how it works—rather, studies of the application of anesthesia is being used to fuel neuroscience. </span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">This is not to say that thermodynamics and information theory were not vital to later development of combustion engines or telecom networks, or that neuroscience discoveries will not led to better anesthetics, but simply to say that science exists as one potential feedback loop among several in technological development, and the whole shebang need not be initiated or paralleled by scientific research to develop to a "true" engineering stage. </span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Stephen</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 12:47 PM, McMillan, William W <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:william.mcmillan@cuaa.edu" target="_blank">william.mcmillan@cuaa.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Mary Shaw of Carnegie Mellon published an article in 1990 in IEEE Software that is an excellent discussion about the development of engineering from craft, production, science, and commerce.<br>
<br>
I think it's relevant to this discussion. Saying that Turing invented the (apparently misnamed) von Neumann architecture is a bit like saying that James Clerk Maxwell invented the telegraph.<br>
<br>
Science usually precedes the formal and systematic application of science. As craft develops in a parallel thread, commercial interests (or military interests?) and production lead to the joining of all these threads to produce true engineering.<br>
<br>
There was a lot of craft and production in the development of computing before they merged with formal theory to form computer science.<br>
<br>
Shaw's article: "Prospects for an Engineering Discipline of Software"<br>
<a href="http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/52.60586" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://doi.<wbr>ieeecomputersociety.org/10.<wbr>1109/52.60586</a><br>
<br>
(An argument can be made that the development of Algol and structured programing is an exception. I presented a paper on this at 4S in 2007.)<br>
<br>
- Bill<br>
<br>
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From: Members [<a href="mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org">members-bounces@lists.sigcis.<wbr>org</a>] on behalf of David Hemmendinger [<a href="mailto:hemmendd@union.edu">hemmendd@union.edu</a>]<br>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 3:16 PM<br>
To: <a href="mailto:dcb@dcbrock.net">dcb@dcbrock.net</a><br>
Cc: <a href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org">members@lists.sigcis.org</a><br>
<span class="im HOEnZb">Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] The latest inventor of the computer<br>
<br>
</span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">>Would you (or someone else reading this) happen to have a good<br>
>bibliography on the history of computer science -- such as it exists<br>
>that could be shared with me (this list)?<br>
<br>
I can recommend several articles on the (internalist) history<br>
of formal languages, automata theory, and recursive functions. They<br>
have further bibliographies that may be helpful. Parts of the articles<br>
are somewhat technical.<br>
The first three are from the Annals 3:1 (1981), special issue on<br>
the theory of computing:<br>
<br>
Sheila Greibach, Formal Languages: Origins and Directions, pp 14-41<br>
Juris Hartmanis, Observations About the Development of Theoretical<br>
Computer Science, pp 42-51<br>
Stephen Kleene, Origins of Recursive Function Theory, pp 52-67.<br>
Lance Fortnow & Steve Homer, A Short History of Computational Complexity,<br>
Bulletin of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science,<br>
2003; <a href="https://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~fortnow/papers/history.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://people.cs.uchicago.<wbr>edu/~fortnow/papers/history.<wbr>pdf</a> .<br>
<br>
<br>
David Hemmendinger <a href="mailto:hemmendd@union.edu">hemmendd@union.edu</a><br>
Professor Emeritus <a href="http://athena.union.edu/~hemmendd" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://athena.union.edu/~<wbr>hemmendd</a><br>
Computer Science Dept. <a href="tel:%2B1%20518%20346%204489" value="+15183464489">+1 518 346 4489</a><br>
Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308 FAX: <a href="tel:%2B1%20518%20388%206789" value="+15183886789">+1 518 388 6789</a><br>
Associate Editor-in-chief, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing<br>
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