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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

Your sentiment about the relationship between computer science and math comes up often enough that I wrote a short essay about it. Computer Science is Not Math: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3928276

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There is an increasing distinction between computer scientists (math and algorithms) and software developers (implementation - your systems researcher and co).

Just as originally computer science was 'just math', the very part of it that made it distinct may have become distinct enough to split off on its own.

While I have seen such a distinction (see my sibling comment), I think it has peaked, and is on the decline. Furthermore, it has more often been outspoken members of one group excluding the other rather than systems researchers or theoreticians not calling themselves "computer scientists."

I have not seen this distinction in academic computer science.

Computer Science often has a different curriculum depending on whether the CS program at the university grew out of its Math or Engineering department. I think this helps explain some of the wide variations in what is considered a "CS" degree.

We may be talking past each other - I am not talking about curriculum's, but the terms that those who do computer science research use to describe themselves. eximius made a claim I have seen no support for. All systems researchers that I know, including myself, consider ourselves computer scientists.

I have seen some schools try move to separate the theoreticians and experimentalists into CS and Software Engineering. I think this is just as stupid as calling physics experimentalists "engineers," but the field is young enough that I may be wrong.

I have also seen people from the theoretical branch say with a straight face that if you're using a computer, you're not doing computer science, and the field should probably be renamed because it's confusing as-is.

[edit]

The theoreticians who think experimentalism has no place in CS love to wield the quote "Computer science is not about machines, in the same way that astronomy is not about telescopes. There is an essential unity of mathematics and computer science" out-of-context to support this claim (It was in a paper about developing elementary-school CS curriculum).

I have also seen some schools offer separate CS and Software Engineering degrees. That may make sense: physics and mechanical engineering are different departments, with different courses. But that is a separate distinction, as most systems researchers I know would tend to remain on the CS side.

The degrees we offer, however, are distinct from the research communities. Related of course, but still distinct. In the computer science research communities I pay attention to, I have seen no such trend.

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