I found Erickson’s and Siau’s article "E-ducation" (Sept. 2003) an eloquent but alas typical example of the inadequacy of many technological approaches to education. Nothing I’ve read in the technical literature has dared ask whether education needs computer technology to begin with or if it does what role it might usefully play. The general attitude […]
Diane Crawford
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Computer science students certainly need math, and the math they need should include what Peter Henderson recommended in his article "Mathematical Reasoning in Software Engineering Education" (Sept. 2003), namely, discrete math and logic. But computer scientists also need other kinds of math. A typical set of math courses toward a CS undergraduate degree might include: […]
The future of high-performance networking and the data-intensive applications that depend on it is in the hands of some of today’s brightest computer scientists. Their efforts are making it possible for e-scientists to collaborate on projects sometimes so wide-ranging they embrace the entire universe from desktops worldwide. These breathtaking projects point to a globally distributed […]
Hal Berghel manages to write several pages about "The Discipline of Internet Forensics" (Digital Village, Aug. 2003) without ever addressing the purpose of forensic science as a whole. Fundamentally, it is science in the service of the law, and its main output is evidence sufficiently robust to withstand scrutiny in the courts. Such output must […]
Service-oriented computing adds a new layer to the Web services coverage we’ve presented in Communications—that is, its very foundation. In the past we’ve explored the technical challenges in providing goods and services in electronic, mobile environs; we’ve detailed the service interfaces and architectures for creating cross-platform interoperability; we’ve tackled the business and marketing hurdles in […]
Why math? This simple, yet age-old question has puzzled generations of computer science students pursuing what many believed is the stuff of precision and logic. Isn’t building computer systems and software rooted in real-life reasoning, they argue; while mathematics orbits around an abstract world? This month’s special section dispels those myths in a series of […]
The article "Digital Music and Online Sharing: Software Piracy 2.0?" (July 2003) on digital music sharing prejudged the most basic questions by formulating the issue in terms of "piracy" and "freeloading." The word piracy, formerly used by authors to criticize publishers who found lawful ways to publish unauthorized editions, has been turned around and now […]
Robert L. Glass’s suggestion that domain-specific languages are superior to domain-independent languages is an interesting point ("One Giant Step Backward," Practical Programmer, May 2003). As a long-time programmer, I thus tend to agree with his assessment that we might actually have done some things better in the past. Meanwhile, however, the industry has apparently replaced […]
Software programming and development practices are at the very core of this publication—where the ever-changing nature of the field has been traced, tested, disputed, and tested again for as long as both have coexisted. At every turn, the goal is to impart new insights or real-world experience to challenge conventional wisdom and inspire further progress. […]
I agree wholeheartedly with the observations of Susan A. Brown and Viswanath Venkatesh ("Bringing Non-Adopters Along," Apr. 2003), particularly about the folly of a computer industry that produces larger and computationally more demanding programs full of largely useless features—that look good only in marketing brochures and that force users to upgrade their machines every three […]
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