No computer science at the computer science forum!

Ben1220

Taking a quick look at the posts in this forum, there is pretty much nothing here to do with the academic discipline of Computer Science. Are people here aware of that and just using this as a general technology discussion area anyway, or is there a misconception of what computer science is here? Just asking out of curiosity because in society in general there is a pretty big misconception about computer science. Edsger Dijkstra, a Computer Scientist probably most known for his graph searching algorithm said that "Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes." That sums it up pretty well. The academic discipline of Astronomy is about gravitational attraction between planets... ect... not about how to look after a telescope. The same applies to computer science. You could consider it the chemistry of information, in fact computer science existed before computers did.

But I see nothing to do with computer science at all here!
Not even a discussion of the most important unsolved problem in computer science, does P = NP?

Phrak

(Would the lofty Edsger Dijkstra tell an experimental physicist constructing the LHC that it has little to do with physics?)

Other’s might share your interests. You might drop a suggestion to divide the computer science folder into two halves--application and theory?

MATLABdude

They built it, and people came, but some want to play cricket, some want to play ball-and-stick, and some people just want to play catch. Every once in a while, there is a ball game, though. Maybe you just need to throw a pitch?

mXSCNT

You make a good point, Ben. It seems that there just aren't too many people here who are actually into computer science as a discipline. Dividing it into application and theory would not be a solution, because most of the posts in the forum are neither applied nor theoretical CS, they're just general help desk questions. There is no solution I can see because PF just lacks the community to support a genuine CS forum.

edit: Actually, there already are specific forums for the kinds of threads that usually get posted to the CS general forum--the Technology subforum, or the Math & Science Software subforum. I wonder why people don't just post there in the first place...

Moonbear

Most people here know what computer science is, and use it as a general technology forum anyway, because for some reason that was never made clear, all the former technology forum posts got dumped into that forum when it was created. There's no dedicated mentor to that forum (that I know of) to sift through and direct things to the right places, so it will probably continue to be a general technology type catch-all forum for a while to come too.

Evo

Moonbear is correct. This is actually just general computer related anything. The old forum was renamed as a test a couple of years ago. Yes, it's time we get rid of the name, it's misleading and confusing.

Coin

A little late to the thread, but I wanted to toss my 2 cents in that I am much happier with the new naming scheme as of right now ("Computing and Technology" vs "Programming and Comp Sci") than I was with the experiment where the main Computers forum was named "Computer Science".

Moonbear

I agree, it's a much better title, I also think it's better than the previous title (I think that was just "Technology"). Computing and Technology seems to do a good job of encompassing the actual content of that forum, and the range of content. Thanks to whomever thought up the new title.

robphy

Here's a related thread from last year when that forum was created
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=252020