[Wylug-help] Contentious sigs........

[Jim Jackson]

oops follow-up to self tut tut....

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Jim Jackson wrote:

>
> John's psychic sig generator[1] has come up with one that I say is
> contentious, even though it's author is pretty illustrious.....
>
> > "Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about
> >  telescopes."                                        -- Edsgar Wybe Dijkstra

Thanks to a private comment by chek jallaei it appears the above comment
can be read in two ways. I read it more as an epistemological statement,
where as it could be read simply as a criticism of current practice -
which I'd agree with.

cheers
Jim

>
> I'd say it's contentious because essentially computer science with out a
> computing engine of some sort would be a theoretically abstract subject,
> Turing had to invent an abstract computing engine to start to develop some
> of the science.
>
> Whereas astronomy is astronomy with or without a telescope.
>
> Suspect Dijkstra was uncharacteristally carried away in an argument
> somewhere and lost the plot.
>
> Jim
>
> [1] It's infamous on the local.news sytem here in the school of computing.
>     Some people think the sigs aren't random at all
>
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