\begin{rant} Jason White wrote:
Donna Benjamin <donna@cc.com.au> wrote:
Hang on - Where's computer science? Oh that's right it doesn't exist in the brave new world of the new Australian Curriculum. It's a general capability (ICT) or a "Technology" along with design, woodworking, cooking and agriculture - in a strand called "Digital Technologies"
It was more than this when I was in secondary school. Then, at least, everybody did a little programming (in BASIC or Logo). Some of us learned Pascal too. I don't know what the computing subjects in years 11-12 would have entailed, as I didn't choose them.
I expect it's as useless as the rest of VCE matric. Probably it involves learning to use winword and whatever dreamweaver is called these days.
As to whether computer science is science strictly so-called, I think it's a similar question to whether mathematics is.
I am very clear (i.e. a bigot) on this: science *is* the empirical method. Therefore soft sciences (like psychology and anthropology) that do studies instead of experiments are not Real Science.[*] Likewise *real* (i.e. pure, not applied) mathematics is not science because it doesn't involve experimentation. It doesn't need to, because it exists in the realm of pure thought. It is, as it were, a /field isolate/ because other disciplines do not have this property. (Well, perhaps wishy-washy stuff like philosophy, ethics, law, theology, linguistics ... OK, I take back the "field isolate" remark.) CS is simply a branch of mathematics. The parts that aren't, which tend to be labelled "software engineering" are really just business management. [*] I gave this spiel to an alleged theoretical chemist recently, and he disagreed violently, although it was my bedtime so I didn't enquire as to details. Whenever someone tells me "I want to study CS at uni" I tell them adamantly that they should take a pure math or physics degree, *not* anything labelled "computer science", because in my experience the latter is a pointless waste of time. They might have to use matlab, but they won't have to put up with memorizing Java APIs. And their fellow students tend to be the ones that are doing interesting CS -- in their spare time. Various IRC denizens have corroborated that this is an international phenomenon. It isn't helped by all these damn kids who consider CS to be a way to make big bucks straight out of school. Nor is it helped by universities insistence on allowing those kids to get to third year (so as to get their tuition fees) rather than flunking three-quarters of them in the first year. >rant rant rant< Further reading: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/10/sheepskin.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html \end{rant}