On The Cruelty Of Really Teaching Computer Science
“On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science” is a 1988 paper by E. W. Dijkstra which argues that computer programming should be understood as a branch of mathematics, and that the formal provability of a program is a major criterion for correctness.
Despite the title, most of the article is on Dijkstra’s attempt to put computer science into a wider perspective within science, teaching being addressed as a corollary at the end. Specifically, Dijkstra made a “proposal for an introductory programming course for freshmen” that consisted of Hoare logic as an uninterpreted formal system.
Read more about On The Cruelty Of Really Teaching Computer Science: Debate Over Feasibility, Pedagogical Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words cruelty, teaching, computer and/or science:
“I love something: and scarcely do I love it completely when the tyrant in me says: “I want that in sacrifice.” This cruelty is in my entrails. Behold! I am evil.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“The analogy between the mind and a computer fails for many reasons. The brain is constructed by principles that assure diversity and degeneracy. Unlike a computer, it has no replicative memory. It is historical and value driven. It forms categories by internal criteria and by constraints acting at many scales, not by means of a syntactically constructed program. The world with which the brain interacts is not unequivocally made up of classical categories.”
—Gerald M. Edelman (b. 1928)
“Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.”
—Paul Valéry (1871–1945)